Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Family
Ah, that l have known! How hard it is to remember what is most memorable! We remember how we itched, not how our hearts beat.—Journal, 11 June 1851
As a mother loves to see her child imbibe nourishment and expand, so God loves to see his children thrive on the nutriment he has furnished them.—Journal, 22 January 1859
Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.—Walden
I cannot but believe that acorns were intended to be the food of man. They are agreeable to the palate as the mother's milk to the babe.—Journal, 8 October 1851
If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again,—if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.—"Walking"
My Friend is not of some other race or family of men, but flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. He is my real brother.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Our mother's faith has not grown with her experience. Her experience has been too much for her. The lesson of life was too hard for her to learn.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The child may soon stand face to face with the best father.—Journal, 12 February 1841
The hawk is the aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea.—Walden
The mother tells her falsehoods to her child, but thank Heaven, the child does not grow up in its parent's shadow.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
