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17fc802
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As far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that corporations may be enriched.
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corporations
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Henry David Thoreau |
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bf0c757
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Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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0925842
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If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours...If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
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dreamers
intention
visionary
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Henry David Thoreau |
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5a4fe55
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I delight to come to my bearings,--not walk in procession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, but to walk even with the Builder of the universe, if I may,--not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by. What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, an..
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simplicity
timelessness
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Henry David Thoreau |
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bd9568e
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A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful, while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless beside being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with, he who knows nothing about a subject, and what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, -- or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?
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Henry David Thoreau |
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af6c38f
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The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by their predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and all things to have been cared for. According to Evelyn, "the wise Solomon prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees; and the Roman praetors have decided how often you may go into your neighbor's land to gather the acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that neighbor." Hippo..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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2dd14e2
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Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts, -a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, though it may be, - "Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart were hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot, ..
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humanity
law
soldier
justice
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Henry David Thoreau |
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e868f63
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If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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0981b9e
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Those who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts.
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truth
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Henry David Thoreau |
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337449f
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I thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays annually. If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself; and my shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement.
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nature
the-woods
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Henry David Thoreau |
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ca71faf
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Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it
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Henry David Thoreau |
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b8c68be
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A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons their kind only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know. If there is something which does not concern me, which is out of my line, which by experience or by genius my attention is not drawn to, however novel and remarkable it may be, if it is spoken, we hear it not, if it is written, we read ..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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84e5dad
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Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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8c61255
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As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution. Probably I should not consciously and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do the good which society demands of me, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now pre..
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philosophy
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Henry David Thoreau |
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6524b69
|
In short, all good things are wild and free.
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goodness
tameness
wildness
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Henry David Thoreau |
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c90a52f
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A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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2747c0b
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A township where one primitive forest waves above, while another primitive forest rots below,--such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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1f2f21f
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I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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9dec874
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A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority.
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politics
majority
restance
minority
power
democracy
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Henry David Thoreau |
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cdc88da
|
The gross feeder is a man in the larva state; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy or imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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7831575
|
As with our colleges, so with a hundred 'modern improvements;' there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to..
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truth
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Henry David Thoreau |
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9085469
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As some heads cannot carry much wine, so it would seem that I cannot bear so much society as you can. I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don't get enough of it this year I shall cry all the next.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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e9bb012
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There is in my nature, methinks, a singular yearning toward all wildness.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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ed07345
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The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respec..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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d494bb4
|
There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.
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politics
individual
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Henry David Thoreau |
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20d9fd6
|
When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them--as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon--I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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5e08949
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The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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fb32b88
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How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! They that soared so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again, and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! They teach us how to die. One wonders if the time will ever come when men, with their boasted faith in immortality, will lie down as gracefully and as r..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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0d3ee7b
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After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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d223224
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There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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3184391
|
Whether he sleeps or wakes, whether he runs or walks, whether he uses a microscope or a telescope, or his naked eye, a man never discovers anything, never overtakes anything or leaves anything behind, but himself. Whatever he says or does he merely reports himself. If he is in love, he loves; if he is in heaven, he enjoys, if he is in hell, he suffers. It is his condition that determines his locality.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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3e1db4f
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God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality which surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us.
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omnipresence
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Henry David Thoreau |
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54aebe0
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All the world complain now a days of a press of trivial duties & engagements which prevents their employing themselves on some higher ground they know of, - but undoubtedly if they were made of the right stuff to work on that higher ground, provided they were released from all those engagements - they would now at once fulfill the superior engagement, and neglect all the rest, as naturally as they breathe. They would never be caught saying ..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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2b518fb
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If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man -- and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages -- it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
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life
housing
cost
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Henry David Thoreau |
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6fbebd5
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There is more day left to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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2db7b20
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My practice is "nowhere", my opinion is here."
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Henry David Thoreau |
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d8eb168
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Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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d64fb99
|
Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are.
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god
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Henry David Thoreau |
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0064694
|
In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature.
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present
walden
thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau |
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d221cb5
|
How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are! [...] When we are weary with travel, we lay down our load and rest by the wayside. So, when we are weary with the burden of life, why do we not lay down this load of falsehoods which we have volunteered to sustain, and be refreshed as never mortal was? Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them. When we would rest our bodies..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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983c7dd
|
The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, of course _a la mode_.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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3aacf2d
|
It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it.
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interest
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Henry David Thoreau |
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f141426
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The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine.
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leisure
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Henry David Thoreau |
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930837a
|
It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.
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Henry David Thoreau |