I do not know but thoughts written down thus in a journal might be printed in the same form with greater advantage than if the related ones were brought together into separate essays. Henry David Thoreau More Quotes by Henry David Thoreau More Quotes From Henry David Thoreau The best poets, after all, exhibit only a tame and civil side of nature. They have not seen the west side of any mountain. Henry David Thoreau mountain west sides All the past is here, present to be tried; let it approve itself if it can. Henry David Thoreau ifs past I know of no redeeming qualities in myself but a sincere love for some things, and when I am reproved I fall back on to this ground. Henry David Thoreau sincere quality fall If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even,- for that is the seat of sympathy,-he forthwith sets about reforming the world. Henry David Thoreau reform pain men Scholars are wont to sell their birthright for a mess of learning. Henry David Thoreau birthright mess scholarship We are more anxious to speak than to be heard. Henry David Thoreau anxious speak heard He is the rich man, and enjoys the fruit of his riches, who summer and winter forever can find delight in his own thoughts. Henry David Thoreau summer winter men I never was so rapid in my virtue but my vice kept up with me. Henry David Thoreau rapids virtue vices It is impossible to give a soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him. Henry David Thoreau government giving war Not by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment, and childlike mirth-fulness. If you would know aught, be gay before it. Henry David Thoreau mirth gay wisdom There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography. Henry David Thoreau writing class two 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. Henry David Thoreau adventure art moving Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free. Henry David Thoreau force 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. Henry David Thoreau sad roots evil 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. Henry David Thoreau mystery men sex One little bird not larger than a sparrow, it may have been a Phalarope, would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the air over the foaming crest of each breaker, but sometimes outriding safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as the breakers in theirs. Henry David Thoreau ocean air sports Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie; and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it. Henry David Thoreau believe lying son To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. Henry David Thoreau friends kindness mean If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth Henry David Thoreau let-it-go machines government When I hear the hypercritical quarreling about grammar and style, the position of the particles, etc., etc., stretching or contracting every speaker to certain rules of theirs. I see that they forget that the first requisite and rule is that expression shall be vital and natural, as much as the voice of a brute or an interjection: first of all, mother tongue; and last of all, artificial or father tongue. Essentially your truest poetic sentence is as free and lawless as a lamb's bleat. Henry David Thoreau mother writing father
