Making a logging-road in the Maine woods is called "swamping" it, and they who do the work are called "swampers." I now perceivedthe fitness of the term. This was the most perfectly swamped of all the roads I ever saw. Nature must have coöperated with art here.

Henry David Thoreau

Categorized in : Art Nature Swamps

If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal - that is your success.

Henry David Thoreau

congratulations sweet life

I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both inperson and property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait until they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.

Henry David Thoreau

support men thinking

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.

Henry David Thoreau

ignorance best-friend friendship

In war, in some sense, lies the very genius of law. It is law creative and active; it is the first principle of the law. What is human warfare but just this, - an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party. Men make an arbitrary code, and, because it is not right, they try to make it prevail by might. The moral law does not want any champion. Its asserters do not go to war. It was never infringed with impunity. It is inconsistent to decry war and maintain law, for if there were no need of war there would be no need of law.

Henry David Thoreau

party war lying

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Henry David Thoreau

failure music fear

I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is - I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

Henry David Thoreau

running morning thinking

It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always. The conscience really does not, and ought not to monopolizethe whole of our lives, any more than the heart or the head. It is as liable to disease as any other part.

Henry David Thoreau

imperfection doe heart

The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show.

Henry David Thoreau

stars jewels night

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.

Henry David Thoreau

kings men civilization

Surely joy is the condition of life.

Henry David Thoreau

conditions joy

We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

Henry David Thoreau

communication texas important

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Henry David Thoreau

being-single music loneliness

It often happens that a man develops a deeper love and friendship with his pet cat or dog than he does with most of the other humans in his life.

Henry David Thoreau

cat dog men

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.

Henry David Thoreau

truth men america

Others - as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders - serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few - as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men - serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part.

Henry David Thoreau

hero god men

A man may esteem himself happy when that which is his food is also his medicine.

Henry David Thoreau

medicine may men

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

Henry David Thoreau

strong humanity animal

Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.

Henry David Thoreau

honesty truth believe

Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay outdoors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well as horse, having an instinct for it...At last we know not what it is to live in the open air, and our lives are domestic in more senses than we think.

Henry David Thoreau

horse children thinking

It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience, but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.

Henry David Thoreau

enough-said corporations men