Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling. Henry David Thoreau More Quotes by Henry David Thoreau More Quotes From Henry David Thoreau Work your vein till it is exhausted, or conducts you to a broader one. Henry David Thoreau veins exhausted Woe be to the generation that lets any higher faculty in its midst go unemployed. Henry David Thoreau midst woe generations We are acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. Most have not delved six feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as many above it. We know not where we are. Beside, we are sound asleep nearly half our time. Henry David Thoreau half feet sound I bought me a spy-glass some weeks since. I buy but a few things, and those not till long after I begin to want them, so that when I do get them I am prepared to make a perfect use of them and extract their whole sweet. Henry David Thoreau glasses sweet long WE begin to die not in our sense or extremities, but in our divine faculties. Henry David Thoreau faculty dies divine If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates a rottenness at the foundation of our community. Henry David Thoreau police community men Ninety-nine one-hundredths of our lives we are mere hedgers and ditchers, but from time to time we meet with reminders of our destiny. Henry David Thoreau reminders ninety-nine destiny It is rare that we use our thinking faculty as resolutely as an irishman his spade. To please our friends and relatives we turn out our silver ore in cartloads, while we neglect to workour mines of gold known only to ourselves far up in the Sierras, where we pulled up a bush in our mountain walk, and saw the glittering treasure. Let us return thither. Let it be the price of our freedom to make that known. Henry David Thoreau mountain gold thinking How many fine thoughts has every man had! How few fine thoughts are expressed! Henry David Thoreau fine every-man men How to extract its honey from the flower of the world. That is my everyday business. I am as busy as a bee about it. I ramble over fields on that errand and am never so happy as when I feel myself heavy with honey and wax. I am like a bee searching the livelong day for the sweets of nature. Henry David Thoreau everyday flower sweet I make it my business to extract from Nature what ever nutriment she can furnish me.... I milk the sky and the earth. Henry David Thoreau milk earth sky Here I am thirty-four years old, and yet my life is almost wholly unexpanded. How much time is in the germ! There is such an interval between my ideal and the actual in many circumstances that I may say I am unborn. Henry David Thoreau four here-i-am years Though my life is low, if my spirit looks upward habitually at an elevated angle, it is as if it were redeemed. When the desire to be better than we are is really sincere we are instantly elevated, and so far better already. Henry David Thoreau spirit desire looks To see wild life you must go forth at wild season. Henry David Thoreau wild-life seasons To forget all about your mistakes adds to them perhaps. Henry David Thoreau mistake add forget A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil. Henry David Thoreau evil feet doors For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it (life), whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to 'glorify God and enjoy him forever.' Henry David Thoreau devil forever men As I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years lived under these heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were brought to the light of this modern day. Henry David Thoreau hunting native-american war I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects more natural. Henry David Thoreau respect native-american thinking There is an orientalism in the most restless pioneer, and the farthest west is but the farthest east. Henry David Thoreau orientalism pioneers east
