Henry David Thoreau: Use

Henry David Thoreau was 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist. Explore interesting quotes on use.
Henry David Thoreau: 770 quotes96 likes

“I am not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my country's God. Jehovah, though with us he has acquired new attributes, is more absolute and unapproachable, but hardly more divine, than Jove. He is not so much of a gentleman, not so gracious and catholic, he does not exert so intimate and genial an influence on nature, as many a god of the Greeks.”

Henry David Thoreau

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Sunday

“What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.”

Henry David Thoreau

Attributed to Thoreau, in The Life You Were Born to Live : A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose (1995) by Dan Millman, p. xi, and to Ralph Waldo Emerson in Promotion of Pharmaceuticals : Issues, Trends, Options (1993) by Dev S. Pathak, Alan Escovitz, and Suzan Kucukarslan, p. 74, but no occurrence of it prior to the 1990s has been located.
Disputed

“I do not wish to force my thoughts upon you, but I feel forced myself. Little as I know of Captain Brown, I would fain do my part to correct the tone and the statements of the newspapers, and of my countrymen generally, respecting his character and actions. It costs us nothing to be just. We can at least express our sympathy with, and admiration of, him and his companions, and that is what I now propose to do.”

Henry David Thoreau book A Plea for Captain John Brown

A Plea for Captain John Brown (1859)

“Whate'er we leave to God, God does
And blesses us.”

Henry David Thoreau

Inspiration, Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900

“This bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above the tinkling of the forge… It remains to remind us of aboriginal nature.”

Henry David Thoreau

March 23, 1856
Journals (1838-1859)

“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth.”

Henry David Thoreau

"Natural History of Massachusetts" , The Dial (1842) https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/nathist.html

“Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?”

Henry David Thoreau

If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him ... he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, — How sweet this crust is!
Letter to Harrison Blake (20 May 1860); published in Familiar Letters (1865)