Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Ethics & Morality
The philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the dust of a puffball.—"Life without Principle"
The traveler Burton says of it—“Your morale improves; you become frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded. . . In the desert, spirituous liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal existence.”—"Walking"
The whole body of what is now called moral or ethical truth existed in the golden age as abstract science. Or, if we prefer, we may say that the laws of Nature are the purest morality.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
There is a reptile in the throat of the greedy man always thirsting and famishing. It is not his own natural hunger and thirst which he satisfies.—Journal, 2 September 1851
There is no such thing as sliding up hill. In morals the only sliders are back-sliders.—Journal, 17 June 1854
There must be some narrowness in the soul that compels one to have secrets.—Journal, 21 February 1842
Virtue is incalculable, as it is inestimable. Well, man's destiny is but virtue, or manhood. It is wholly moral, to be learned only by the life of the soul.—Journal, 3 April 1842
Virtue is the deed of the bravest art which demands the greatest confidence and fearlessness. Only some hardy soul ventures upon it. Virtue is a bravery so hardy that it deals in what it has no experience in.—Journal, 1 January 1842
We might so simplify the rules of moral philosophy, as well as of arithmetic, that one formula would express them both. All the moral laws are readily translated into natural philosophy, for often we have only to restore the primitive meaning of the words by which they are expressed, or to attend to their literal instead of their metaphorical sense. They are already supernatural philosophy.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
We need pray for no higher heaven than the pure senses can furnish, a purely sensuous life. Our present senses are but the rudiments of what they are destined to become. We are comparatively deaf and dumb and blind, and without smell or taste or feeling.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
