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The Thoreau Institute
at Walden Woods Library
Thoreau's
Life & Writings
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Henry D. Thoreau Quotation Pages
On Sorrow
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The death of friends should inspire us
as much as their lives. If they are great and rich enough, they will
leave consolation to the mourners before the expenses of the funerals.
It will not be hard to part with any worth, because it is worthy. How
can any good depart? It does not go and come, but we. Shall we wait for
it? Is it slower than we? [Journal,
20 February 1842]
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You ask if there is no doctrine of
sorrow in my philosophy. Of acute sorrow I suppose that I know
comparatively little. My saddest and most genuine sorrows are apt to be
but transient regrets. The place of sorrow is supplied, perchance, by a
certain hard and proportionably barren indifference. I am of kin to the
sod, and partake largely of its dull patience,―in winter expecting the
sun of spring. In my cheapest moments I am apt to think that it is not
my business to be “seeking the spirit,” but as much its business to be
seeking me. I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he
never had a chagrin, but he made a poem out of it. I have altogether too
much patience of this kind. I am too easily contented with a slight and
almost animal happiness. My happiness is a good deal like that of the
woodchucks. [Thoreau to
H.G.O. Blake, 2 May 1848]
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Make the most
of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it
till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. [Journal,
13 November 1839]
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Soon after John's death I listened to a
music-box, and if, at any time, that event had seemed inconsistent with
the beauty and harmony of the universe, it was then gently constrained
into the placid course of nature by those steady notes, in mild and
unoffended tone echoing far and wide under the heavens. But I find these
things more strange than sad to me. What right have I to grieve, who
have not ceased to wonder? 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 just grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is
as natural as the resin on 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. [Thoreau to
Mrs. Lucy Brown, 2 March 1842]
A
Note on the Text:
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Source:
Unless otherwise noted, quotations are from The Writings of Henry
David Thoreau (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906)
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