A true politeness does not result from any hasty and artificial polishing, it is true, but grows naturally in characters of the right grain and quality, through a long fronting of men and events, and rubbing on good and bad fortune. Henry David Thoreau More Quotes by Henry David Thoreau More Quotes From Henry David Thoreau We boast of our system of education, but why stop at schoolmasters and schoolhouses? We are all schoolmasters, and our schoolhouse is the universe. To attend chiefly to the desk or schoolhouse while we neglect the scenery in which it is placed is absurd. If we do not look out we shall find our find schoolhouse standing in a cow-yard at last. Henry David Thoreau yards education looks As for me, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtlest imaginable essences, which would not stain the morning sky. Henry David Thoreau essence bible morning We are born as innocents. We are polluted by advice. Henry David Thoreau born advice Every oak tree started out as a couple of nuts who stood their ground. Henry David Thoreau couple nuts tree Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it. Henry David Thoreau one-in-a-million money men We need the tonic of wildness. Henry David Thoreau environmental health nature The next day the Indian told me their name for this light,--artoosoq',--and on my inquiring concerning the will-o'-the-wisp, and the like phenomena, he said that his "folks" sometimes saw fires passing along at various heights, even as high as the trees, and making a noise. I was prepared after this to hear of the most startling and unimagined phenomena, witnessed by "his folks"; they are abroad at all hours and seasons in scenes so unfrequented by white men. Nature must have made a thousand revelations to them which are still secrets to us. Henry David Thoreau nature men science We have need to be earth-born as well as heaven-born, gegeneis, as was said of the Titans of old, or in a better sense than they. Henry David Thoreau earth heaven needs The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies. Henry David Thoreau church soul men In an unjust society the only place for a just man is prison. Henry David Thoreau unjust-society politics men He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise. Henry David Thoreau greed cooking food 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. Henry David Thoreau law men mean A man's real faith is never contained in his creed, nor is his creed an article of his faith. The last is never adopted. This it is that permits him to smile ever, and to live even as bravely as he does. And yet he clings anxiously to his creed, as to a straw, thinking that that does him good service because his sheet anchor does not drag. Henry David Thoreau real faith men We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. Henry David Thoreau camping night heaven The language of friendship is not words but meanings. Henry David Thoreau true-love best-friend friendship A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture. Henry David Thoreau men history needs Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. Henry David Thoreau fighting men life I think of no news to tell you. It is a serene summer day here, all above the snow. The hens steal their nests, and I steal theireggs still, as formerly. This is what I do with the hands. Ah, labor,--it is a divine institution, and conversation with many men and hens. Henry David Thoreau summer winter men Surely, we are provided with senses as well fitted to penetrate the spaces of the real, the substantial, the eternal, as these outward are to penetrate the material universe. Veias, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates, Christ, Shakespeare, Swedenborg,--these are some of our astronomers. Henry David Thoreau transcendentalism space real One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make the bones with;" and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying himself with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle. Henry David Thoreau oxen philosophical animal
