[	Tags	|	thoreau	]
[	mood	|	accomplished	]
[	music	|	Tim Rushlow- 'I Can't Be Your Friend'	]

So.  I realize this post isn't likely to be anything better than skimmed, but it's going to be a book-marked page on my PC at home.   For everyone else, I highly recommend HDT even if you're not into the Transcendentalism scene.  Here's some of his finest:

"Tumble me down; and I will sit
Upon my ruins, smiling yet."

"When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?"

"Perhaps I do not know what are the duties of a Governor; but if to be a Governor requires to subject one's self to so much ignominy without remedy, if it is to put a restraint upon my manhood, I shall take care never to be Governor of Massachusetts."

"I would remind my countrymen, that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour."

"The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer."

"Thank Heaven here is not all the world."

"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.   Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience."

"To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation!-- why, if I had taken one turn down the harbour I should have known more about it."

"I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced."

"He was indeed a silly loon, I thought."

"There is more day to dawn.  The sun is but a morning star."

And my personal favorite...

"If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me-- some of its virus mingled with my blood."

Henry David Thoreau Quotes

The Higher Law
The Service
"Mankind, like the earth, revolve mainly from west to east, and so are flattened at the poles."
"Tumble me down; and I will sit
Upon my ruins, smiling yet."
"If we are not blind, we shall see how a right hand is stretched over all, as well as the unlucky as lucky, and that the ordering soul is only right handed, distributing with one palm all our fates.
"When we listen to [the divine melody of the universe] we are so wise that we need not to know.  All sounds, and more than all, silence, do fife and drum for us."
"A man's life should be a stately march to an unheard music, and when to his fellows it seems irregular and inharmonious, he will be stepping to a livelier measure, which only his nicer ear can detect."

Paradise To Be Regained
"Let us not succumb to nature.  We will marshal the clouds and restrain the tempests; we will bottle up pestilent exhalations, we will probe for earthquakes, grub them up; and give vent to the dangerous gases; we will disembowel to the volcano, and extract its poison, take its seed out.  We will wash water, and warm fire, and cool ice, and underprop the earth.  We will teach birds to fly, and fishes to swim, and ruminants to chew the cud.  It is time we had looked into these things."
"A few of the most obvious and familiar of these powers are, the Wind, the Tide, the Waves, the Sunshine.  Let us consider their value."

Resistance to Civil Government
"….yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.  It does not keep the country free.  It does not settle the West.  It does not educate.  The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way."
"I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail.  I am willing to leave it to the majority.  Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency.  Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it.  It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail."
"Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?"
"Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my father attended, but never I myself. "Pay," it said, "or be locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. But, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax bill, and have the State to back its demand, as well as the Church. However, as the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing: "Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any society which I have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know where to find such a complete list."
"When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?"
"I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mender. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended show, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour--for the horse was soon tackled--was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen."
"However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it."

Slavery in Massachusetts
"I listen to hear the voice of a Governor, Commander-in-Chief of the forces of Massachusetts.  I hear only the creaking of crickets and the hum of insects which now fill the summer air… It chances that is all I have ever seen of a Governor.  I think that I could manage to get along without one.  If he is not of the least use to prevent my being kidnapped, pray of what important use is he likely to be to me?  When freedom is most endangered, he dwells in the deepest obscurity.  A distinguished clergyman told me that he chose the profession of a clergyman, because it afforded the most leisure for literary pursuits.  I would recommend to him the profession of a Governor."
"Perhaps I do not know what are the duties of a Governor; but if to be a Governor requires to subject one's self to so much ignominy without remedy, if it is to put a restraint upon my manhood, I shall take care never to be Governor of Massachusetts."
"When I have taken up this [news]paper with my cuffs turned up, I have heard the gurgling of the sewer through every column.  I have felt that I was handling a paper picked out of the public gutters, a leaf from the gospel of the gambling-house, the groggery and the brothel, harmonizing with the gospel of the Merchants' Exchange."
"I would remind my countrymen, that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour."

Life Without Principle
"The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer."
"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!"
"As for the means of living, it is wonderful how indifferent men of all classes are about it, even reformers, so called-- whether they inherit, or earn, or steal it.  I think that society has done nothing for us in this respect, or at least has undone what she has done.  Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off."
"The [gold] rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind.  That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society!  And that is called enterprise!  I know of no more startling development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living.  The philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the dust of a puff-ball.  The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirring up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company.  If I could command the wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay such a price for it."
"I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold.  I have seen a little of it.  I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit.  A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom."
"Pray, let us live without being drawn by dogs, Esquimaux-fashion, tearing over hill and dale, and biting each other's ears."
"Do we call this the land of the free?  What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice?"

Reform and the Reformers
"…The Conservative belongs to a decaying family…"
"I cannot bear to be told to wait for good results, I pine as much for good beginnings."
"Thank Heaven here is not all the world."
"Shall we not stretch our legs?-- Why shall we pause this side of sundown?  We will not then be immigrants still further into our native country.  Let us start now on that fartherest western way which does not pause at the Mississippi or the Pacific, pushing on by day and night, sun down--moon down--stars down-- and at last earth down too."

Walden
Economy
"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.   Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience."
"But men labor under a mistake.  The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost."
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.  What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."
"Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost."
"The starts are the apexes of what wonderful triangles!  What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment!"
"The greater part of what my neighbours call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behaviour.  What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?"
"In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, in which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line."
"The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind."
"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new."
"I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the labourers locked up their tools at night; and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in I, to admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free.  This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alternative.  You could sit up as late as you pleased, and whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rend.  Many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen to death in such a box as this.  I am far from jesting."
"While civilisation has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them."
"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion."
"No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself."
"To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation!-- why, if I had taken one turn down the harbour I should have known more about it."
"'What!' exclaim a million Irishmen, starting up from all the shanties in the land, 'is not this railroad which we have built a good thing?'  Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you might have done worse; but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time better than digging in this dirt."
"Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave.  What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners?  One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon."
"As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.  I might possibly invent some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it."
"If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me-- some of its virus mingled with my blood."
"I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail."
"If you should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing.  Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings.  Take your time, and set about some free labour."

Where I Lived and What I Lived For
"To be awake is to be alive.  I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.  How could I have looked him in the face?"
"Be it life or death, we crave only reality.  If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business."

Reading
"For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man?"
"A written word is the choicest of relics.  It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art.  It is the work of art nearest to life itself.  It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself."
"It is not all books that are as dull as their readers.  There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of things for us.  How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!"

Sounds
"The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it.  It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph."

Solitude
"I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced."
"I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

Visitors
"I think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way."
"With respect to wit, I learned that there was not much difference between the half and the whole."

The Beanfield
"Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead.  Many a lusty crest-waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust."

The Village
"And the houses were so arranged as to make the most of mankind, in lanes and fronting one another, so that every traveller had to run the gauntlet, and every man, woman and child might get a lick at him.  Of course, those who were stationed nearest to the head of the line, where they could most see and be seen, and have the first blow at him, paid the highest prices for their places; and the few straggling in habitants in the outskirts, where long gaps in the line began to occur, and the traveller could get over walls or turn aside into cow-paths, and so escape, paid a very slight ground or window tax."

The Ponds
"A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air.  It is continually receiving new life and motion from about.  it is intermediate in its nature between land and sky.  On land only the grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind."
"Flint's Pond! Such is the poverty of our nomenclature.  What right had the unclean and stupid farmer, whose farm abutted on this sky water, whose shores he has ruthlessly laid bare, to give his name to it?"
"Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth."

Higher Laws
"No man ever followed his genius till it misled him."
"I am glad to have drunk water so long, for the same reason that I prefer the natural sky to an opium-eater's heaven."

Brute Neighbors
"See those clouds; how they hang! That's the greatest thing I have seen today."
"He was indeed a silly loon, I thought."

Conclusion
"Direct your eye sight inward, and you'll find
A thousand regions in your mind
Yet undiscovered.  Travel them, and be
Expert in home-cosmography."
"Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist."
"Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men.  But what is that to the purpose?  A living dog is better than a dead lion.  Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can?  Let everyone mind his own business, and endeavour to be what he was made."
"However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.  It is not so bad as you are.  It looks poorest when you are richest.  The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.  Love your life, poor as it is.  You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse."
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
"There is more day to dawn.  The sun is but a morning star."