Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters? Henry David Thoreau More Quotes by Henry David Thoreau More Quotes From Henry David Thoreau Morning brings back the heroic ages. Henry David Thoreau heroic age morning Though the words Canada East on the map stretch over many rivers and lakes and unexplored wildernesses, the actual Canada, which might be the colored portion of the map, is but a little clearing on the banks of the river, which one of those syllables would more than cover. Henry David Thoreau lakes rivers might Every man is entitled to come to Cattle-Show, even a transcendentalist; and for my part I am more interested in the men than in the cattle. Henry David Thoreau transcendentalism he-man men The walls that fence our fields, as well as modern Rome, and not less the Parthenon itself, are all built of ruins. Henry David Thoreau rome wall fields While the very inhabitants of New England were thus fabling about the country a hundred miles inland, which was a terra incognitato them,... Champlain, the first Governor of Canada,... had already gone to war against the Iroquois in their forest forts, and penetrated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, before a Pilgrim had heard of New England. Henry David Thoreau lakes war country You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate. Henry David Thoreau obscurity secret men There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the world over, living on anticipation. Henry David Thoreau reform time world The intellect of most men is barren. They neither fertilize or are fertilized. It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, that gives birth to imagination...without nature-awakened imagination most persons do not really live in the world, they merely pass through it as they live dull lives of quiet desperation. Henry David Thoreau gratitude dull-life men When I would re-create myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter as a sacred place, a Sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, of Nature. Henry David Thoreau gardening strength nature Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants. Henry David Thoreau want men life The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse. Henry David Thoreau cat men life However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the lay, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned. Henry David Thoreau criticism imagination life If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure, that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for. Henry David Thoreau society would-be life Four things to think about. 1. Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. 2. Let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred. 3. Keep three chairs in your house. One for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. 4. To preserve your relationship to nature, make your life more moral, more pure, more innocent. Henry David Thoreau nature life thinking Life is grand, and so are its environments of Past and Future. Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man's destiny were not equally so? Henry David Thoreau beautiful life past The art of life, of a poet's life, is, not having anything to do, to do something. Henry David Thoreau life-is life art A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Henry David Thoreau beautiful life book I have received no more than one or two letters in my life that were worth the postage. Henry David Thoreau letters life two Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love; and in proportion to our truthfulness and confidence in one another, our lives are divine and miraculous, and answer to our ideal. . . . Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. Henry David Thoreau truth answers life Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure. Henry David Thoreau failure life children
