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 Men spend the best parts of their lives earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it. Henry David Thoreau independence men order They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating property. The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. Henry David Thoreau independence rich men Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concretic layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society...may unexpectedly come forth...to enjoy its perfect summer life at last!...Such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn...Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. Henry David Thoreau summer morning beautiful The squeaking of the pump sounds as necessary as the music of the spheres. Henry David Thoreau pumps unity sound The tavern will compare favorably with the church. Henry David Thoreau taverns compare church The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what we do; and yet how much is not done by us! Henry David Thoreau anxiety disease done Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East -- to know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them -- who were above such trifling. Henry David Thoreau east west should The traveler must be born again on the road, and earn a passport from the elements. Henry David Thoreau traveler elements born-again Who hears the fishes when they cry? Henry David Thoreau fishing sea lakes Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him. Henry David Thoreau sea lakes men We waded so gently and reverently, or we pulled together so smoothly, that the fishes of thought were not scared from the stream, nor feared any angler on the bank, but came and went grandly, like the clouds which came and went on the western sky, and the mother-o'-pearl flocks which sometimes form and dissolve there. Henry David Thoreau fishing mother sea I confess I was surprised to find that so many men spent their whole day, ay, their whole lives almost, a-fishing. It is remarkable what a serious business men make of getting their dinners, and how universally shiftlessness and a groveling taste take refuge in a merely ant-like industry. Better go without your dinner, I thought, than be thus everlastingly fishing for it like a cormorant. Of course, viewed from the shore, our pursuits in the country appear not a whit less frivolous. Henry David Thoreau lakes men country I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten today, that I might go a- fishing. That's the true industry for poets. It is the only trade I have learned. Henry David Thoreau fishing sea lakes Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and races of men are always existing in epitome in every neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived. Henry David Thoreau race lakes men There is always some accident in the best things, whether thoughts or expressions or deeds. The memorable thought, the happy expression, the admirable deed are only partly ours. Henry David Thoreau memorable philosophy art Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right... 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 men mean thinking The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever!... What at such a time are histories, chronologies, traditions, and all written revelations? The brooks sing carols and glees to the spring. Henry David Thoreau glee spring years As the stars looked to me when I was a shepherd in Assyria, they look to me now as a New-Englander. Henry David Thoreau shepherds stars looks 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. Henry David Thoreau tree firsts thinking If you look over a list of medicinal recipes in vogue in the last century, how foolish and useless they are seen to be! And yet we use equally absurd ones with faith today. Henry David Thoreau recipes use today
