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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 69a03a6 | This is all a figurative way of speaking about what is unmentionable. What is unmentionable is pure fuck and pure cunt; it must be mentioned only in de luxe editions, otherwise the world will fall apart. What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse. But fuck, the real thing, cunt, the real thing, seems to contain some unidentified element which is far more dangerous than nitroglycerine. | Henry Miller | ||
| c91e382 | Whoever, through too great love, which is monstrous after all, dies of his misery, is born again to know neither love nor hate, but to enjoy. And this joy of living, because it is unnaturally acquired, is a poison which eventually vitiates the whole world. Whatever is created beyond the normal limits of human suffering, acts as a boomerang and brings about destruction. | Henry Miller | ||
| 7bd702a | Why do we wear out so quickly, when the elements of which we are composed are indestructible? What is it that wears out? Not that of which we are made, that is certain. We wither and fade away, we perish, because the desire to live is extinguished. And why does this most potent flame die out? For lack of faith. From the time we are born we are told that we are mortal. From the time we are able to understand words we are taught that we must .. | faith | Henry Miller | |
| 355f188 | To paint is to love again, live again, see again. To get up at the crack of dawn in order to take a peek at the water colors one did the day before, or even a few hours before, is like stealing a look at the beloved while she sleeps. The thrill is even greater if one has first to draw back the curtains. How they glow in the cold light of early dawn! ... Is there any writer who rouses himself at daybreak in order to read the pages of his man.. | painting | Henry Miller | |
| cc710b2 | The news that Daisy Miller was surrounded by half a dozen wonderful mustaches checked Winterbourne's impulse to go straightway to see her. | Henry James | ||
| ae2720f | I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a passtime, if we live simply and wisely | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 5519433 | There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony. | food | Henry David Thoreau | |
| ca0d2a2 | With what infinite & unwearied expectation and proclamations the cocks usher in every dawn, as if there had never been one before. | nature | Henry David Thoreau | |
| 25f19a0 | Men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men. | freedom livestock | Henry David Thoreau | |
| 13bb670 | I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, 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. In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though the.. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 42fdbfd | A man thinking or working will always be alone, let him be where he will. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| ebd3000 | The impression made on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 75a08af | A traveller! I love his title. A traveler is to be reverenced as such. His profession is the best symbol of our life. Going from-toward; it is the history of every one of us. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 17fc802 | 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. | corporations | Henry David Thoreau | |
| bf0c757 | 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. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 0925842 | 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. | dreamers intention visionary | Henry David Thoreau | |
| 5a4fe55 | 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.. | simplicity timelessness | Henry David Thoreau | |
| bd9568e | 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? | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| af6c38f | 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.. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 2dd14e2 | 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, .. | humanity justice law soldier | Henry David Thoreau | |
| e868f63 | 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. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 0981b9e | Those who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts. | truth | Henry David Thoreau | |
| 337449f | 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. | nature the-woods | Henry David Thoreau | |
| ca71faf | Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| b8c68be | 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 .. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 84e5dad | 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. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 9e402fe | Epictetus has had a long-standing resonance in the United States; his uncompromising moral rigour chimed in well with Protestant Christian beliefs and the ethical individualism that has been a persistent vein in American culture. His admirers ranged from John Harvard and Thomas Jefferson in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau in the nineteenth. More recently, Vice-Admiral James Stockdale w.. | Epictetus | ||
| 8c61255 | 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.. | philosophy | Henry David Thoreau | |
| 6524b69 | In short, all good things are wild and free. | goodness tameness wildness | Henry David Thoreau | |
| c90a52f | A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 2747c0b | 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. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 1f2f21f | 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. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 9dec874 | A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority. | democracy majority minority politics power restance | Henry David Thoreau | |
| 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. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 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.. | truth | Henry David Thoreau | |
| 9085469 | 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. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| a851010 | Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of the earth. HENRY DAVID THOREAU | Ellen Dugan | ||
| e9bb012 | There is in my nature, methinks, a singular yearning toward all wildness. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 85ce14b | Even when you do not know where the next dollar is coming from, you should refuse to be apprehensive. When you do your part and rely on God to do His, you will find that mysterious forces come to your aid and that your constructive wishes soon materialize. This confidence and consciousness of abundance are attained through meditation. | Paramahansa Yogananda | ||
| ed07345 | 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.. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 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. | individual politics | Henry David Thoreau | |
| 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. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| 5e08949 | 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. | Henry David Thoreau | ||
| fb32b88 | 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.. | Henry David Thoreau |