Henry David Thoreau Quotations: LIFE
At death our friends and relations either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart further from us and are forgotten. Friends are as often brought nearer together as separated by death.—Journal, 24 December 1850
At present I am subsisting on certain wild flavors which nature wafts to me, which unaccountably sustain me, and make my apparently poor life rich.—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 20 November 1849
Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exception that we see and hear.—Journal, 11 December 1855
Both for bodily and mental health, court the present.—Journal, 28 December 1852
Brown is the color for me, the color of our coats and our daily lives, the color of the poor man’s loaf. The bright tints are pies and cakes, good only for October feasts, which would make us sick if eaten every day.—Journal, 28 March 1859
But let us hear a strain of music, we are at once advertised of a life which no man had told us of, which no preacher preaches. Suppose I try to describe faithfully the prospect which a strain of music exhibits to me. The field of my life becomes a boundless plain, glorious to tread, with no death nor disappointment at the end of it. All meanness and trivialness disappear. I become adequate to any deed. No particulars survive this expansion; persons do not survive it. In the light of this strain there is no thou nor I. We are actually lifted above ourselves.—Journal, 15 January 1857
But what is the use in trying to live simply, raising what you eat, making what you wear, building what you inhabit, burning what you cut or dig, when those to whom you are allied insanely want and will have a thousand other things which neither you nor they can raise and nobody else, perchance, will pay for?—Journal, 5 November 1855
Can there be any greater reproach than an idle learning? Learn to split wood, at least.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Consider what a difference there is between living and dying. To die is not to begin to die, and continue; it is not a state of continuance, but of transientness; but to life is a condition of continuance, and does not mean to be born merely.—Journal, 12 March 1842
Cowards suffer, heroes enjoy.—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 20 May 1860
