Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Life & Death
I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of existence like pulp,—tadpoles which herons gobble up, and tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that sometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the liability to accident, we must see how little account is to be made of it.—Walden
I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.—Thoreau to Myron B. Benton, 21 March 1862
I sympathize with weeds perhaps more than with the crop they choke, they express so much vigor.—Journal, 24 July 1852
I think that the standing miracle to man is man. Behind the paling yonder, come rain or shine, hope or doubt, there dwells a man an actual being who can sympathize with our sublimest thoughts.—Journal, 21 May 1851
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.—Walden
I would not preserve the husk of life, but the kernel.—Journal, 23 December 1851
I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way.—Walden
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
If it were not for death and funerals I think the institution of the Church would not stand longer.—Journal, 16 November 1851
If men were to be destroyed and the books they have written were to be transmitted to a new race of creatures, in a new world, what kind of record would be found in them of so remarkable a phenomenon as the rainbow?—Journal, 13 March 1859
