O_L1RU1 favourite quotes (page 13) | Quotes of famous people

“Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood”

Henry David Thoreau A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Source: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

“The heart is forever inexperienced.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“I make myself rich by making my wants few.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Source: Thoreau Journal 9

“I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in it's gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Source: Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

“We are born as innocents. We are polluted by advice.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

February 28, 1840
Journals (1838-1859)

“Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, 'I will simply be.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“The path of least resistance leads to crooked rivers and crooked men.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“… for my greatest skill has been to want but little.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Variant: A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Source: Walden

“Men reverence one another, not yet God.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Sunday
Context: It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God. If I thought that I could speak with discrimination and impartiality of the nations of Christendom, I should praise them, but it tasks me too much. They seem to be the most civil and humane, but I may be mistaken.

“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 book Civil Disobedience

Civil Disobedience (1849)
Context: To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? 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. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. 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.

“I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

His last letter, to Myron Benton (31 March 1862) http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/writings/correspondence/1862_03_21_Benton.htm
Context: You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

“You must get your living by loving.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.