Henry David Thoreau Quotations: MORALS & VALUES
All genuine goodness is original and as free from cant and tradition as the air.—Journal, 16 June 1857
All good things are cheap—all bad are very dear.—Journal, 3 March 1841
All true greatness runs as level a course, and is as unaspiring, as the plow in the furrow. It wears the homeliest dress and speaks the homeliest language.—Journal, 29 December 1841
An honest misunderstanding is often the ground of future intercourse.—Journal, 6 March 1841
Ancient history has an air of antiquity. It should be more modern. It is written as if the spectator should be thinking of the backside of the picture on the wall, or as if the author expected that the dead would be his readers, and wished to detail to them their own experience.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Any moral philosophy is exceedingly rare.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth.—Journal, 22 October 1853
As it is, each takes us up into the serene heavens, whither the smallest bubble rises as surely as the largest, and paints earth and sky for us. Any sincere thought is irresistible.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
At each step man measures himself against the system.—Journal, 31 January 1841
At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only,—when fences shall be multiplied, and man traps and other engines invented to confine men to the public road; and walking over the surface of God’s earth, shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities then before the evil days come.—"Walking"
