 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
"Give me time enough, and I may like it." |
|
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. Letter, May 11, 1843, to Thoreau's father and mother, in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 6, p. 71, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
Thoreau was living on Staten Island at this time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
"I am as unfit for any practical purpose—I mean for the furtherance of the world's ends—as gossamer for ship-timber; and I, who am going to be a pencil-maker to-morrow, can sympathize with God Apollo, who served King Admetus for a while on earth." |
|
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. Letter, September 8, 1841, to Lucy Brown, in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 6, p. 39, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
|
|
|
|
|
|
"When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men,—those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers." |
|
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. "Life Without Principle" (1863), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 4, p. 480, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
|
|
|
|
|
|
"We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaper. At any meeting of politicians ... how impertinent it would be to quote from the Bible! how pertinent to quote from a newspaper or from the Constitution!" |
|
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. "Slavery in Massachusetts" (1854), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 4, p. 398, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
|
|
|
|
|
|
"The note of the white-throated sparrow, a very inspiriting but almost wiry sound, was first heard in the morning, and with this all the woods rang. This was the prevailing bird in the northern part of Maine. The forest generally was alive with them at this season, and they were proportionally numerous and musical about Bangor. They evidently breed in that State." |
|
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. "The Allegash and East Branch" (1864) in The Maine Woods (1864), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 3, p. 213, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
|
|
|
|
|
|
"We soon after saw a splendid yellow lily (Lilium canadense) by the shore, which I plucked. It was six feet high, and had twelve flowers, in two whorls, forming a pyramid, such as I have seen in Concord. We afterward saw many more thus tall along this stream, and also still more numerous on the East Branch, and, on the latter, one which I thought approached yet nearer to the Lilium superbum. The Indian asked what we called it, and said that the "loots" (roots) were good for soup, that is, to cook with meat, to thicken it, taking the place of flower. They get them in the fall. I dug some, and found a mass of bulbs pretty deep in the earth, two inches in diameter, looking, and even tasting, somewhat like raw green corn on the ear." |
|
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. "The Allegash and East Branch" (1864) in The Maine Woods (1864), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 3, p. 209, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Carlyle is a critic who lives in London to tell this generation who have been the great men of our race." |
|
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. "Thomas Carlyle and His Works" (1847), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 4, p. 354, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
|
|
|
|
|
|
"I rejoice that there are owls.... They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have." |
|
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. Walden (1854), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 2, p. 139, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homoeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs." |
|
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. Walden (1854), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 2, p. 185, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
|
|
|
|
|
|
"It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind." |
|
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. Walden (1854), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 2, p. 366, Houghton Mifflin (1906).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
People who read
Henry David Thoreau
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
