Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Health & Illness
If any part of nature excites our pity, it is for ourselves we grieve, for there is eternal health and beauty. We get only transient and partial glimpses of the beauty of the world.—Journal, 11 December 1855
In society you will not find health, but in nature.—"Natural History of Massachusetts"
It is the faith with which we take medicine that cures us.—Journal, 27 June 1852
No doubt the healthiest man in the world is prevented from doing what he would like sickness.—Journal, 21 December 1855
Stuff a cold and starve a cold are but two ways. They are the two practices both always in full blast. Yet you must take advice of the one school as if there was no other.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversÂ
The unwise are accustomed to speak as if some were not sick; but methinks the different between men in respect to health is not great enough to lay much stress upon.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversÂ
This stillness, solitude, wildness of nature is a kind of thoroughwort, or boneset, to my intellect. This is what I go out to seek.—Journal, 7 January 1857
To the healthy man the winter of his discontent never comes.—Journal, 13 October 1851
To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery. Who chains me to this dull town?—"Resistance to Civil Government"
We constantly anticipate repose. Yet it surely can only be the repose that is in entire and healthy activity. It must be a repose without rust.—Journal, 13 December 1841
