Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Love
All a man's strength and all his weakness go to make up the authority of any particular opinion which he may utter. He is strong or weak with all his strength and weakness combined. If he is your friend, you may have to consider that he loves you, but perchance he also loves gingerbread.—Journal, 16 February 1854
All romance is grounded on friendship.—Journal, 18 February 1840
How insufficient is all wisdom without love.—Journal, 25 March 1842
How many things can you go away from? They see the comet from the northwest coast just as plainly as we do, and the same stars through its tail. Take the shortest way round and stay at home. A man dwells in his native valley like a corolla in its calyx, like an acorn in its cup. Here, of course, is all that you love, all that you expect, all that you are. Here is your bride elect, as close to you as she can be got. Here is all the best and all the worst you can imagine. What more do you want? Bear hereaway then! Foolish people imagine that what they imagine is somewhere else. That stuff is not made in any factory but your own.—Journal, 1 November 1858
I love and worship myself with a love which absorbs my love for the world.—Journal, 18 July 1851
I love men with the same distinctions that I love women—as if my friend were of some third sex—some other or stranger and still my friend.—Journal, 5 May 1846
I love my friends very much, but I find that it is of no use to go to see them. I hate them commonly when I am near them. They belie themselves and deny me continually.—Journal, 16 November 1851
I love that one with whom I sympathize.—Journal, 24 November 1858
I suppose that what in other men is religion is in me love of nature.—Journal, 30 October 1842
Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
