"I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings."
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Quote collection
Henry David Thoreau quotes (page 66 of 139)
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"Knowledge is to be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can interpret another's experience only by his own."
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"When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?"
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"Nature is a greater and more perfect art, the art of God; though, referred to herself, she is genius; and there is a similarity between her operations and man's art even in the details and trifles. When the overhanging pine drops into the water, by the sun and water, and the wind rubbing it against the shore, its boughs are worn into fantastic shapes, and white and smooth, as if turned in a lathe. Man's art has wisely imitated those forms into which all matter is most inclined to run, as foliage and fruit."
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"I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse."
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"Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.... If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible."
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"Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made."
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"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. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate."
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"Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice."
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"A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture."
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"However much we admire the orator's occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or abovethe fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind the clouds."
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"We believe that the possibility of the future far exceeds the accomplishment of the past. We review the past with the common sense, but we anticipate the future with transcendental senses. In our sanest moments we find ourselves naturally expecting or prepared for far greater changes than any which we have experienced within the period of distinct memory, only to be paralleled by experiences which are forgotten."
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"It is pitiful when a man bears a name for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame."
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"As for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere. I had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period of my life; I mean that I had some."
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"Whether we live by the seaside, or by the lakes and rivers, or on the prarie, it concerns us to attend to the nature of fishes, since they are not phenomena confined to certain localities only, but forms and phases of the life in nature universally dispersed. The countless shoals which annually coast the shores of Europe and America are not so interesting to the student of nature as the more fertile law itselffrom which it results that they may be found in water in so many places, in greater or lesser numbers."
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"It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat the mirror-like surface of the water, in which every twig and blade of grass was so faithfully reflected; too faithfully indeed for art to imitate, for only Nature may exaggerate herself."
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"We seem to have forgotten that the expression "a liberal education" originally meant among the Romans one worthy of free men; while the learning of trades and professions by which to get your livelihood merely, was considered worthy of slaves only. But taking a hint from the word, I would go a step further and say, that it is not the man of wealth and leisure simply, though devoted to art, or science, or literature, who, in a true sense, is liberally educated, but only the earnest and free man."
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"If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man--not to make any invidious comparison--is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.... Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet."
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"How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again."
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"Truth, Goodness, Beauty - those celestial thrins,Continually are born; e'en now the Universe,With thousand throats, and eke with greener smiles,Its joy confesses at their recent birth."
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