Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Faith & Spirit
The best man's spirit makes a fearful sprite to haunt his tomb. The ghost of a priest is no better than that of a highwayman.—Journal, 23 December 1841
The bigoted and sectarian forget that without religion or devotion of some kind nothing great was ever accomplished.—Journal, 27 July 1852
The only faith that men recognize is a creed. But the true creed which we unconsciously live by, and which rather adopts us than we it, is quite different from the written or preached one.—Journal, 3 September 1839
There are various, nay incredible faiths; why should we be alarmed at any of them?—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
There is no infidelity so great as that which prays and keeps the Sabbath and founds churches.—Journal, 1 January 1842
Veias, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates, Christ, Shakespeare, Swedenborg,—these are some of our astronomers.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Was awakened in the night to a strain of music dying away,—passing travellers singing. My being was so expanded and infinitely and divinely related for a brief season that I saw how unexhausted, how almost wholly unimproved, was man’s capacity for a divine life. When I remembered what a narrow and finite life I should anon awake to!—Journal, 19 April 1856
We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.—Journal, June 1850
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
When heaven begins and the dead arise, no trumpet is blown; perhaps the south wind will blow. What if you or I be dead! God is alive still.—Journal, 13 March 1842
