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3cfbe6f
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If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know how much truth is stronger than errors, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.
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injustice
voting
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Henry David Thoreau |
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325316e
|
Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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9e691d8
|
I love a broad margin to my life.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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aa2945d
|
So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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1593b36
|
Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wings, -- The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that blows Is all that any body knows
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science
ecology
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Henry David Thoreau |
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ee51793
|
Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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ddc77e0
|
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.
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shelter
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Henry David Thoreau |
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e92811c
|
The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there.
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nature
woods
mountains
thoreau
maine-woods
maine
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Henry David Thoreau |
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b4a5070
|
It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal ne..
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words
literature
reading
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Henry David Thoreau |
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a8defcb
|
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. We are scarcely less afflicted when we remember some unworthiness in our conduct in a dream, than if it had been actual, and the intensity of our grief, which is our atonement, measures inversely the degree by which this is separated from an actual unworthiness. For in dreams we but act a part which must have been learned and rehearsed in our waking hours, and no doubt could discover some waking..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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c89e931
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Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?
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Henry David Thoreau |
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9081e7c
|
Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past.
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present
past
mindfulness
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Henry David Thoreau |
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7f40633
|
Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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79fcd2e
|
Morning is when I'm awake, and there is dawn in me.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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8281414
|
Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted or enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles.
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life
new-clothes
enterprise
old-clothes
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Henry David Thoreau |
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84b8b4b
|
Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid.
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heritage
|
Henry David Thoreau |
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741f679
|
Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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4306ead
|
Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free-trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and manufacturers and agriculture. Nuestros legisladores no han aprendido todavia el valor comparativo del libre cambio y la libertad, la union y la rectitud hacia la nacion. No tienen genio ni talento para hacerse..
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legislators
congress
individuals
liberalism
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Henry David Thoreau |
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d9671f7
|
It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.
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appleseed
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Henry David Thoreau |
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c90244b
|
The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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7390b4c
|
It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such.
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self-belief
society
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Henry David Thoreau |
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57f2d51
|
Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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8971417
|
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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c886fb7
|
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies
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Henry David Thoreau |
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f6cf196
|
I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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8a47a69
|
SAUNTERING, which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander."
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Henry David Thoreau |
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b3b7557
|
Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more, and withdrawing into the wilderness.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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a7c9f2c
|
It's too late to be studying Hebrew; it's more important to understand even the slang of today.
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being-informed
modern-speech
slang
culture
technology
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Henry David Thoreau |
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9df68c2
|
There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dulness. I need only suggest what kind of sermons are still listened to in the most enlightened countries. There are such words as joy and sorrow, but they are only the burden of a psalm, sung with a nasal twang, while we believe in the ordinary and mean.
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religion
routine
|
Henry David Thoreau |
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7c93bdf
|
Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure
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|
wildness
wild
|
Henry David Thoreau |
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a610e79
|
To be alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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97a1686
|
Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
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Henry David Thoreau |
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0e27a6e
|
See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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f75a9d9
|
What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance?
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knowledge
|
Henry David Thoreau |
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cf0f445
|
I believe,--"That government is best which governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."
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Henry David Thoreau |
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0b5e12e
|
I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any independent, intellegent, and respectable man what decision they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of his wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon some independent votes? Are there not many individuals..
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independence
politics
independent-vote
presidency
politicians
|
Henry David Thoreau |
|
01251a0
|
As the sun went down, I saw a solitary boatman disporting on the smooth lake. The falling dews seemed to strain and purify the air, and I was soothed with an infinite stillness. I got the world, as it were, by the nape of the neck, and held it under in the tide of its own events, till it was drowned, and then I let it go down stream like a dead dog. Vast hollow chambers of silence stretched away on every side, and my being expanded in propo..
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nature
spirituality
|
Henry David Thoreau |
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e353e6d
|
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, an obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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30e5d1a
|
As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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1719aab
|
As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole life. It is never isolated, or simply added as treasure to our stock. When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.
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|
Henry David Thoreau |
|
5b480ad
|
A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length ever become the laughing-stock of the world.
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|
politics
|
Henry David Thoreau |
|
df10c94
|
If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.
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Henry David Thoreau |
|
670c87f
|
We know but few man, a great many coats and breeches.
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|
thoreau
|
Henry David Thoreau |
|
2535324
|
I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.
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Henry David Thoreau |