O_L1RU1

@O_L1RU1, member from March 5, 2023
Henry David Thoreau photo

“I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: It is so hard to forget what it is worse than useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.

Henry David Thoreau photo

“If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!

Henry David Thoreau photo

“If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.”

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

Source: I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau photo

“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”

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

“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”

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

Source: On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau photo

“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.”

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

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”

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

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”

Henry David Thoreau A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Source: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Henry David Thoreau photo

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”

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

Variant: Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Source: Walden and Other Writings

Henry David Thoreau photo

“All good things are wild and free.”

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

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…”

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

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Henry David Thoreau photo

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”

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

Variant: It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Henry David Thoreau photo

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

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

August 19, 1851
Journals (1838-1859)
Variant: How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Henry David Thoreau photo

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

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

“Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin!”

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

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours … In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Commonly misquoted, converted to imperative mood, as "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler".
Walden (1854)

Henry David Thoreau photo

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

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