On Advice
"I have lived some
thirty-odd years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of
valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors."
"Aim above morality. Be
not simply good, be good for something."
"His face, once seen, could not be
forgotten. The features were quite marked: the nose aquiline or very Roman,
like one of the portraits of Caesar (more like a beak, as was said); large overhanging
brows above the deepest set blue eyes that could be seen, in certain lights,
and in others gray, — eyes expressive of all shades of feeling, but never weak
or near-sighted; the forehead not unusually broad or high, full of concentrated
energy and purpose; the mouth with prominent lips, pursed up with meaning and
thought when silent, and giving out when open with the most varied and unusual
instructive sayings." From
Thoreau's friend Ellery Channing, in Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist.
On Ability
"He is the best sailor who
can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the
greatest obstacles."
"I know of no more
encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by
conscious endeavor."
On action
"We do not learn by
inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but
by direct intercourse and sympathy."
"I did not wish to take a
cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world,
for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to
go below now."
On adulthood
"We seem but to linger in
manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood and they vanish out of memory ere
we learn the language."
On age and aging
"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."
"The youth gets together
his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple
on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed
with them."
"None are so old as those who
have outlived enthusiasm"
"How earthy old people
become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no
foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole
crickets."
On achievement
"The man who is
dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?"
On animals
"What is a country without
rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal
products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times;
of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the
ground."
"The keeping of bees is
like the direction of sunbeams."
On architecture
"True, there are
architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least
possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth,
a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very
well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common
dilettantism."
On alcohol and alcoholism
"Water is the only drink
for a wise man."
On the Army
"Visit the Navy-Yard, and
behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it
can make a man with its black arts -- a mere shadow and reminiscence of
humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say,
buried under arms with funeral accompaniments."
On battles
"After all the field of
battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no
room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of
noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard
hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a
mask."
On behavior
"If I repent of anything,
it is very likely to be my good behavior."
"Behave so the aroma of
your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere."
On bereavement
"We feel at first as if
some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that
any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; -- for
a spent grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as
natural as the resin of Arabian trees. -- Only nature has a right to grieve
perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the
blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The
same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be
sorrowful, if he is not."
"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."
On the Human Body
"Every man is the builder
of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his
own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and
painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones."
On books - classics
"For what are the classics but the
noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and
there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona
never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old."
"To read well, that is, to read true
books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader
more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a
training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the
whole life to this object."
"Read the best books
first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all."
"Books must be read as
deliberately and reservedly as they were written."
"Books, not which afford
us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such
as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which
even make us dangerous to existing institution --such call I good books."
"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a
book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and
reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere
uttered."
On bragging
"If I seem to boast more
than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for
myself."
On busyness
"It is not enough to be
busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"
On caution
"Beware of all enterprises
that require a new set of clothes."
On change
"Things do not change, we
do."
On character
"We know but a few men, a
great many coats and breeches."
"Pity the man who has a
character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor
indeed."
"The universe seems
bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals."
"We falsely attribute to
men a determined character -- putting together all their yesterdays -- and
averaging them -- we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to
support -- it is worse than a large family -- he is the silent poor
indeed."
On charity
"If you give money, spend
yourself with it."
On chastity
"The generative energy,
which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are
continent invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and
what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits
which succeed it."
On common sense
"Why level downward to our
dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense
is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring."
On company
"I have a great deal of
company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls."
On compliments
"The greatest compliment
that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my
answer."
On conflict
"The fibers of all things
have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument."
On conformity
"As to conforming
outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of
that course."
On congress
"If we were left solely to
the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the
seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would
not long retain her rank among the nations."
On control
"Let nothing come between
you and the light."
On conventionality
"Every generation laughs
at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new."
On corruption
"There is no odor so bad
as that which arises from goodness tainted."
On cost
"The cost of a thing is
the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it,
immediately or in the long run."
On crafts
"The Artist is he who
detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of
man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have
detected."
On criticism
"I am sorry to think that
you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe
truth is expressed with some bitterness."
On death
"Live your life, do your
work, then take your hat."
"Every blade in the field
- Every leaf in the forest - lays down its life in its season as beautifully as
it was taken up."
On deeds and good deeds
"As for doing good; that
is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and,
strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my
constitution."
"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."
On desire
"If a man constantly
aspires is he not elevated?"
On desperation
"The mass of men lead
lives of quiet desperation."
On determination
"I put a piece of paper
under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark."
On disease
"Is not disease the rule
of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been
riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes
esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If
misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a
perfect leaf or fruit."
On distrust
"Distrust any enterprise
that requires new clothes."
On doubt
"There is no rule more
invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we
suspect."
"Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I
could not doubt, I should not believe."
On dream
"If you have built castles
in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put
the foundations under them."
"If one advances
confidently in the directions of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life
which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common
hours."
"Our truest life is when
we are in our dreams awake."
On duty
"For many years I was a
self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty
faithfully, though I never received payment for it."
On eccentricity
"You must not blame me if
I do talk to the clouds."
On editing and editors
"Whether the flower looks
better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our
feet to get it! Is the scholastic air any advantage?"
On education
"How could youths better
learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?"
"What does education often
do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook."
On egotism
"I should not talk so much
about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well."
On emotions
"The heart is forever
inexperienced."
On enlightenment
"The light which puts out
our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is
more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."
On eternity
"In eternity there is
indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions
are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never
be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing
in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how
shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains."
On existence
"Being is the great
explainer."
On experience
"Experience is in the
fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced."
On exploration
"It is easier to sail many
thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with
five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea,
the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone. It is not worth the while
to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar."
On eyes
"The eye is the jewel of
the body."
On facts
"My facts shall be
falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be
significant, shall be myths or mythologies. Facts which the mind perceived,
thoughts which the body thought -- with these I deal."
On failure
"Men are born to succeed,
not to fail."
On faith
"We must have infinite
faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have
not."
"Through want of
enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending
their lives like servants."
"The words which express
our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant
like frankincense to superior natures."
"The smallest seed of
faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness."
On fame
"Even the best things are
not equal to their fame."
On farming and farmers
"Farmers are respectable
and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor."
"By avarice and
selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding
the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape
is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of
lives. He knows Nature but as a robber."
On fashion
"We worship not the
Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full
authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the
monkeys in America do the same."
On fear
"People die of fright and
live of confidence."
On flowers
"One of the most
attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve."
On food and eating
"I have found it to be the
most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me
to eat and drink coarsely also."
On freedom
"The law will never make
men free, it is men that have to make the law free."
On friends and friendship
"A friend is one who
incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and
who can appreciate them in us. The friend asks no return but that his friend
will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They
cherish each other's hopes. They are kind to each other's dreams."
"We have not so good a right to hate any
as our Friend."
"A man cannot be said to
succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend."
"One may discover a new
side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in
public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The
longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then"
"The language of
friendship is not words but meanings."
"The most I can do for my
friend is simply be his friend."
"To say that a man is your
Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most
contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of
Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or
his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and
practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live
in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody."
"True friendship can afford true
knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance."
On generations
"I suppose you think that
persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very
grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did
when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it."
On goals
"In the long run you hit
only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had
better aim at something high."
On god
"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."
On goodness
"Goodness is the only
investment which never fails."
On generations
"I suppose you think that
persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very
grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did
when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it."
On government
"The government of the
world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner
conversations over the wine."
"Government is at best but
an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are
sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a
standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also
at last be brought against a standing government."
"That government is best
which governs least."
"This American government
-- what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit
itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity?
It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can
bend it to his will."
On grammar
"When I hear the
hypercritical quarreling about grammar and style, the position of the
particles, etc., etc., stretching or contracting every speaker to certain rules
of theirs. I see that they forget that the first requisite and rule is that
expression shall be vital and natural, as much as the voice of a brute or an
interjection: first of all, mother tongue; and last of all, artificial or
father tongue. Essentially your truest poetic sentence is as free and lawless
as a lamb's bleat."
On greed
"He who distinguishes the
true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be
otherwise."
On grief
"What right have I to
grieve, who have not ceased to wonder?"
On happiness
"Man is the artificer of
his own happiness."
"We are made happy when
reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more
persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such
breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light."
On health
"Measure your health by
your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the
awakening of nature --if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish
sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you --know that the
morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse."
"Must be out-of-doors
enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and
sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life."
On home
"We should come home from
adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and
character."
"I had three chairs in my
house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society."
"Should not every
apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity
overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters?"
On honesty
"Be true to your work,
your word, and your friend."
On hospitality
"Nowadays the host does
not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself
somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the
greatest distance."
On humility
"Humility like the
darkness, reveals the heavenly lights."
On happiness
"Man is the artificer of
his own happiness."
"We are made happy when
reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more
persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such
breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light."
On health
"Measure your health by
your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the
awakening of nature --if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish
sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you --know that the
morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse."
"Must be out-of-doors
enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and
sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life."
On idleness
"To have done anything
just for money is to have been truly idle."
On imagination
"I do not know how to
distinguish between our waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the
life that we imagine we are?"
"It is usually the
imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more
sensitive."
On independence
"The man who goes alone
can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is
ready, and it may be a long time before they get off."
On influence
"We perceive and are
affected by changes too subtle to be described."
On inheritance
"To inherit property is
not to be born -- it is to be still-born, rather."
On inspiration
"Write while the heat is
in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron
which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his
audience."
On instinct
"What is peculiar in the
life of a man consists not in his obedience, but his opposition, to his
instincts. In one direction or another he strives to live a supernatural
life."
On institutions
"The way in which men
cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of
themselves, reminds me of those monkeys which cling by their tails -- aye,
whose tails contract about the limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and
they hang suspended beyond the hunter's reach long after they are dead. It is
of no use to argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but
merely, as it were a prehensile tail."
"Wherever a man goes, men
will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can,
constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society."
On integrity
"The laboring man has not
leisure for a true integrity day by day."
On intelligence and
intellectuals
"We need only travel
enough to give our intellects an airing."
On kindness
"We hate the kindness
which we understand."
On knowledge
"Knowledge does not come
to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven."
"The knowledge of an
unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses
and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the
knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public
works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is
liable to dry rot."
"To know that we know what
we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true
knowledge."
On language
"We are armed with
language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human
character."
On law and lawyers
"It is not desirable to
cultivate a respect for law, so much as a respect for right."
“Whatever the human law may be,
neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice
against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for
it."
"The lawyer's truth is not
Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency."
"I say, break the law."
On leisure
"He enjoys true leisure
who has time to improve his soul's estate."
"A broad margin of leisure
is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in
life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe,
not of the cars. What are threescore years and ten hurriedly and coarsely lived
to moments of divine leisure in which your life is coincident with the life of
the universe?"
On letters
"I have received no more
than one or two letters in my life that were worth the postage."
On liberty
"Disobedience is the true
foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."
On life
"Most men lead lives of
quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."
"If I shall sell both my
forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I'm sure that, for
me, there would be nothing left worth living for."
"City life is millions of
people being lonesome together."
"I went to the woods
because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of
life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came
to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not
life... I wanted to live so sturdily and so Spartan-like as to put to rout all
that was not life... to drive life into a corner to know it by experience and
be able to give an account of it in my next excursion."
"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 the richest."
On love
"There is no remedy for
love than to love more."
"Love must be as much a
light, as it is a flame."
On luxury
"Most of the luxuries and
many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but
positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind."
On masses
"The mass never comes up
to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a
level with the lowest."
On mathematics
"In the midst of this
chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands
and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he
would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead
reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds."
On media
"We are eager to tunnel
under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but
perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping
American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough."
On mediocrity
"The boy gathers materials
for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed."
On memory
"Our moments of
inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them;
for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and
anon reminded of them."
"Of what significance are
the things you can forget."
On minorities
"A minority is powerless
while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is
irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight."
On mistakes
"The broadest and most
prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it."
On money
"Almost any man knows how
to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it."
"The way by which you may
get money almost without exception leads downward."
"The only wealth is
life."
"Money is not required to
buy one necessity of the soul."
On morality
"Our whole life is
startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and
vice."
"Don't be too moral. You
may cheat yourself out of much life so."
"Do not be too moral. You
may cheat yourself out of much life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good;
be good for something."
On music
"The pleasure we feel in
music springs from the obedience which is in it."
On mystery
"At the same time that we
are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be
mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed
and unfathomed by us because unfathomable."
On names
"If the fairest features
of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and
worthiest men alone."
"A name pronounced is the recognition of
the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can
call me, and is entitled to my love and service."
On nations
"Nations! What are
nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The
historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that
there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world."
On nature
"We can never have enough
of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and
titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living
and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks
and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some
life pasturing freely where we never wander."
On news
"To a philosopher all
news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit it and read it are old
women over their tea."
On passion
"Do what you love. Know
you own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still."
On patriotism
"Yet some can be patriotic
who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the
soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may
still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads."
On people
"You know about a person
who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act,
which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than
words can."
On philosophers and philosophy
"What sort of philosophers
are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?"
"To be a philosopher is not merely to
have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to
live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity,
and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically,
but practically."
On plays
"A stereotyped but
unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and
amusements of mankind."
On poetry and poets
"Poetry implies the whole
truth, philosophy expresses only a particle of it."
"Good poetry seems too simple and natural
a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets.
Poetry is nothing but healthy speech."
On politics
"Politics is the gizzard
of society, full of gut and gravel."
On potential
"We are not what we are,
nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of
being."
On poverty and the poor
"Give me the poverty that
enjoys true wealth."
On present
"You must live in the
present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each
moment."
On pride
"I would not talk so much
about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well."
On prison
"Under a government which
imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
On problems
"There are thousands
hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
On profits
"I respect not his labors,
his farm where everything has its price, who would carry the landscape, who
would carry his God, to market, if he could get anything for him; who goes to
market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields
bear no crops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruits, but
dollars."
On progress
"When any real progress is
made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before."
On property
"The highest law gives a
thing to him who can use it."
On protest
"I quietly declare war
with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get
advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases."
On public opinion
"Public opinion is a weak
tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself,
that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate."
On purity
"The purity men love is
like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether
beyond."
On purpose
"Many men go fishing their
entire lives without knowing it is not fish they are after."
"Be not simply good; be
good for something."
"Why should we be in such
desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does
not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different
drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured and far
away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an
oak."
On rain
"To watch this crystal
globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this
somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another.
The gathering in of the clouds with the last rush and dying breath of the wind,
and then the regular dripping of twigs and leaves the country over, the
impression of inward comfort and Sociableness, the drenched stubble and trees
that drop beads on you as you pass, their dim outline seen through the rain on
all sides drooping in sympathy with yourself. These are my undisputed
territory. This is Nature's English comfort."
On rank
"It is an interesting
question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of
their clothes."
On rebellion
"The greater part of what
my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of
anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me
that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old man, -- you
who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind, -- I hear an
irresistible voice which invites me away from all that."
On reform
"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. Let this be righted,
let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will
forsake his generous companions without apology."
On regret
"To regret deeply is to
live afresh."
"Make the most of your
regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it come to
have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live
afresh."
On resignation
"What is called
resignation is confirmed desperation."
On respectability
"We live thick and are in
each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think we thus lose some
respect for one another."
On riches
"That man is richest whose
pleasures are the cheapest."
"The rich man is always
sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more
money, the less virtue."
On risk
"A man sits as many risks
as he runs."
On rules
"Any fool can make a rule,
and every fool will mind it."
"Absolutely speaking, Do
unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden
rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little
occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case."
On saints
"Our manners have been
corrupted by communication with the saints."
On scholars and scholarship
"The success of great
scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not
manly."
On science
"If we knew all the laws
of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual
phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only
a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or
irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the
calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those
instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater
number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not
detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of
view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it
has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when
cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness."
On seasons
"Live in each season as it
passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself
to the influences of each.
On self-appraisal
"We are constantly invited
to be who we are."
On self-expression
"I fear chiefly lest my
expression may not be extravagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the
narrow limit of my daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which
I have been convinced. Extravagance! it depends on how you are yarded."
On self-improvement
"To affect the quality of
the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life,
even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and
critical hour."
On knowledge
"Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the
eye and the nerve."
"I know myself as a human entity; the
scene, so to speak, or thoughts are affection; and am sensible of certain
doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However
intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part
of me, which, as it were, is no part of me, but spectator, sharing no
experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you."
"Nay, be a Columbus to
whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade,
but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly
empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice."
On sensitivity
"The finest qualities of our nature, like
the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet
we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly."
On silence
"I have been breaking
silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it."
"Silence is the universal
refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our
every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that
background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which,
however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our
inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb
us."
On simplicity
"Our life is frittered
away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! 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."
On sin
"We cannot well do without
our sins; they are the highway of our virtue."
"After the first blush of
sin comes its indifference."
On sincerity
"I sat at a table where
were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity
and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board."
"I only desire sincere
relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an
opportunity once in a year to speak the truth."
On slavery
"Talk about slavery! It is
not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought
and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and
surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery
is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone... I never yet met
with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest
and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than
the black men only because he is a more valuable slave."
On socializing and socialism
"What men call social
virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which
lie close together to keep each other warm."
On society
"Sobriety, severity, and
self-respect are the foundations of all true sociality."
On solitude
"I find it wholesome to be
alone the greater part of time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon
wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone, I never found the companionable as
solitude."
"I have never found a
companion so companionable as solitude."
"I would rather sit on a
pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion."
"If we will be quiet and
ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment."
On soul
"However intense my
experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me,
which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience,
but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it
may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind
of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned."
On speech
"Speech is for the
convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things
which we cannot say if we have to shout."
On stardom
"The stars are the apexes
of what triangles!"
On state
"There will never be a
really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the
individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and
authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining
a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the
individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it
inconsistent with its own repose if a few went to live aloof from it, not
meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors
and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop
off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and
glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen."
On success
"You must get your living
by loving, or at least half your life is a failure."
"We were born to succeed,
not to fail."
"We must walk consciously
only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success."
On the sun
"The sun is but a morning
star."
On suspicion
"We are paid for our
suspicions by finding what we suspected."
On taxes and taxation
"If a thousand men were
not to pay their tax-bills this year that would not be a violent and bloody
measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence
and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable
revolution, if any such is possible."
On technology
"Our inventions are wont
to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are
but improved means to an unimproved end."
On tenderness
"Glances of true beauty
can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness."
On thoughts and thinking
"A man thinks as well
through his legs and arms as this brain."
"Thought is the sculptor
who can create the person you want to be."
"To him whose elastic and
vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning."
"Associate reverently, as much as you
can, with your loftiest thoughts."
"How can they expect a
harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character."
"Each thought that is
welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be
laid."
"Having each some shingles
of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them."
On time
"Time is but the stream I
go fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and
detect how shallow it is. It's thin current slides away, but eternity
remains."
"As if you could kill time
without injuring eternity."
"You cannot kill time
without injuring eternity."
On tools
"But lo! men have become
the tools of their tools."
On travel
"That devilish Iron Horse,
whose ear-rending neigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the Boiling
Spring with his foot, and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on Walden
shore, that Trojan horse, with a thousand men in his belly, introduced by
mercenary Greeks! Where is the country's champion, the Moore of Moore Hall, to meet
him at the Deep Cut and thrust an avenging lance between the ribs of the
bloated pest?"
"He who is only a traveler
learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are
most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or
instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human
experience."
"Only the traveling is
good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it
better."
On trust
"I think that we may
safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of
ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere."
On truth
"Between whom there is
hearty truth, there is love."
"It takes two to speak
truth -- one to speak, and another to hear."
"Rather than love, than
money, than fame, give me truth."
On understanding
"We shall see but little
way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure
with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing
in the meanwhile!"
On universe
"The universe is wider
than our views of it."
On vegetarianism
"One farmer says to me,
You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make
bones with; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his
system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind
his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow
along in spite of every obstacle."
"I have no doubt that it
is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to
leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating
each other when they came in contact with the more civilized."
On virtue
"That virtue we appreciate
is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess."
"There are nine hundred
and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man."
On vision
"I would give all the
wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true
vision."
On voting
"All voting is a sort of
gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing
with right and wrong."
On war
"The savage in man is
never quite eradicated."
"I have a deep sympathy
with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul."
On wealth
"A man is rich in
proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone."
"Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities
only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul."
"Wealth is the ability to
fully experience life."
"In wildness is the
preservation of the world."
"We need the tonic of
wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen
lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where
only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls
with its belly close to the ground."
On winter
"Many of the phenomena of
Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We
are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but
with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer."
On wisdom
"It is characteristic of
wisdom not to do desperate things."
On wit
"Sometimes we are inclined
to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we
appreciate only a third part of their wit."
On women
"It requires nothing less
than a chivalric feeling to sustain a conversation with a lady."
On words
"The volatile truth of our
words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement."
On work
"Men have become the tools
of their trade."
"The really efficient
laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his
task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure."
"There is no more fatal
blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his
living."
"Most men would feel
insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and
then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many
are no more worthily employed now."
On world
"The earth is not a mere
fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be
studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the
leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit -- not a fossil earth, but a
living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable
life is merely parasitic. Its throes will heave our exuviate from their
graves."
On worth
"All good things are
cheap: all bad are very dear."
On writers and writing
"A perfectly healthy
sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and
fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the
morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their
azure."
"How vain it is to sit
down to write when you have not stood up to live."
On youth
"Youth gets together with
their materials to build a bridge to the moon or maybe a palace on earth; then
in middle age they decide to build a woodshed with them instead."
In General
"I heartily accept the
motto, That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it
acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to
this, which I also believe, That government is best which governs not at all;
and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which
they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments
are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
"I must walk toward
Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say
that mankind progress from east to west. We go eastward to realize history and
study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go
westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. "
"Eastward I go only by
force; but westward I go free. "
"Nothing is so much to be
feared as fear. "
"There are a thousand
hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may
be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is
doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in
vain to relieve"
"Drive a nail home and
clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work
with satisfaction, a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse.
"
"I lose my respect for the man who can
make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when you speak
earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent. "
"Our inventions are wont
to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are
but improved means to an unimproved end, We are in great haste to construct a
magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing
important to communicate. "
"Every man will be a poet if he can;
otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the
poet. "
"The mass of men lead
lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console
yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious
despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of
mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a
characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. "
"If a man is alive, there is always
danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in
proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as
he runs. "
