Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Indians
I have much to learn of the Indian, nothing of the missionary.—The Maine Woods
I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects more natural.—"Walking"
Indians like to get along with the least possible communication and ado.—The Maine Woods
It is with science as with ethics,—we cannot know truth by contrivance and method; the Baconian is as false as any other, and with all the helps of machinery and the arts, the most scientific will still be the healthiest and friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian wisdom.—"Natural History of Massachusetts"
It was unusual for the woods to be so distant from the shore, and there was quite an echo from them, but when I was shouting in order to awake it, the Indian reminded me that I should scare the moose, which he was looking out for, and which we all wanted to see.—The Maine Woods
The arrow shot by the Indian is still found occasionally sticking in the trees of our forest.—Journal, 1 July 1850
The Indian does well to continue Indian.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The muskrat and the fresh water muscle are very native to our river. The Indian, their human compere, has departed.—Journal, 7 October 1851
There is something more respectable than railroads in these simple relics of the Indian race. What hieroglyphs shall we add to the pipe-stone quarry?—Journal, 7 July 1845
Thus a man shall lead his life away from here on the edge of the wilderness, in Indian Millinocket stream, in a new world, far in the dark of a continent, and have a flute to play at evening here, while his strains echo to the stars, amid the howling of wolves; shall live, as it were, in the primitive age of the world, a primitive man.—The Maine Woods
