Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Faith & Spirit
It might seem that I had some spite against the priest, but not so, I am on as good terms with him as with another man.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversÂ
Listen to music religiously as if it were the last strain you might hear.—Journal, 12 June 1851
Man flows at once to God as soon as the channel of purity, physical, intellectual, and moral is open.—Journal, 1850
Men invite the devil in at every angle and then prate about the garden of Eden and the fall of man.—Journal, 5 November 1855
On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have hence forth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world. —Journal, 28 February 1840
One music seems to differ from another chiefly in its more perfect time, to use this word in a true sense. In the steadiness and equanimity of music lies its divinity.—Journal, 8 January 1842
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
That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last.—Walden
That nation is not Christian where the principles of humanity so not prevail, but the prejudices of race.—Journal, 25 September 1851
The audience are never tired of hearing how far the wind carried some man, woman, or child, or family Bible, but they are immediately tired if you undertake to give them a scientific account of it.—Journal, 4 February 1852
