Quotes by Thoreau, Henry David

"Youth gets together with their materials to build a bridge to the moon or maybe a palace on earth; then in middle age they decide to build a woodshed with them instead."

Thoreau, Henry David on youth   

"We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy."

Thoreau, Henry David on action   

"I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now."

Thoreau, Henry David on action   

"We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language."

Thoreau, Henry David on adulthood   

"City life is millions of people being lonesome together."

Thoreau, Henry David on life   

"Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring."

Thoreau, Henry David on common sense   

"I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls."

Thoreau, Henry David on company   

"The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my answer."

Thoreau, Henry David on compliments   

"The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument."

Thoreau, Henry David on conflict   

"As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course."

Thoreau, Henry David on conformity
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"If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations."

Thoreau, Henry David on congress   

"Let nothing come between you and the light."

Thoreau, Henry David on control   

"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new."

Thoreau, Henry David on conventionality   

"There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted."

Thoreau, Henry David on corruption
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"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."

Thoreau, Henry David on cost   

"The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected."

Thoreau, Henry David on crafts   

"I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness."

Thoreau, Henry David on criticism
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"I heartily accept the motto,That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also 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. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. "

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"I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. "

Thoreau, Henry David on uncategorised   

"Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free. "

Thoreau, Henry David on uncategorised   

"Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. "

Thoreau, Henry David on uncategorised   

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. "

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"Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction,a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. "

Thoreau, Henry David on uncategorised   

"I lose my respect for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when you speak earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent. "

Thoreau, Henry David on uncategorised   

"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. "

Thoreau, Henry David on uncategorised   

"Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet. "

Thoreau, Henry David on uncategorised   

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. "

Thoreau, Henry David on uncategorised   

"If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs. "

Thoreau, Henry David on uncategorised   

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. "

Thoreau, Henry David on uncategorised
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"Every blade in the field - Every leaf in the forest - lays down its life in its season as beautifully as it was taken up."

Thoreau, Henry David on death   

"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!"

Thoreau, Henry David on simplicity   

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."

Thoreau, Henry David on