Henry David Thoreau Quotations: MORALS & VALUES
What you call bareness and poverty is to me simplicity.—Journal, 5 December 1856
Whatever has not come under the sway of man is wild. In this sense original and independent men are wild—not tamed and broken by society.—Journal, 3 September 1851
Whatever of past or present wisdom has published itself to the world, is palpable falsehood till it come and utter itself by my side.—Journal, 4 August 1838
Whatever your sex or position, life is a battle in which you are to show your pluck, and woe be to the coward.—Journal, 21 March 1853
When I hear music I fear no danger, I am invulnerable, I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times and to the latest.—Journal, 13 January 1857
When it was proposed to me to go abroad, rub oft some rust, and better my condition in a worldly sense, I fear lest my life will lose some of its homeliness. If these fields and streams and woods, the phenomena of nature here, and the simple occupations of the inhabitants should cease to interest and inspire me, no culture or wealth would atone for the loss.—Journal, 11 March 1856
When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Where an angel travels it will be paradise all the way, but where Satan travels it will be burning marl and cinders.—"Paradise (to be) Regained"
While my friend was my friend he flattered me, and I never heard the truth from him, but when he became my enemy he shot it to me on a poisoned arrow.—Journal, after 11 September 1849
Whoever has discerned truth, has received his commission from a higher source then the chiefest justice in the world, who can discern only law.—"Slavery in Massachusetts"
