If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
—WaldenIf a man is rich and strong anywhere, it must be on his native soil. Here I have been these forty years learning the language of these fields that I may the better express myself. If I should travel to the prairies, I should much less understand them, and my past life would serve me but ill to describe them.
—Journal, 20 November 1857If a man were to place himself in an attitude to bear manfully the greatest evil that can be inflicted on him, he would find suddenly that there was no such evil to bear; his brave back would go a-begging.
—Thoreau to H. G. O. Blake, 19 December 1854If any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I sympathized with them at least.
—WaldenIf any part of nature excites our pity, it is for ourselves we grieve, for there is eternal health and beauty. We get only transient and partial glimpses of the beauty of the world.
—Journal, 11 December 1855If anybody else—any farmer, at least—should spend an hour thus wading about here in this secluded swamp, barelegged, intent on the sphagnum, filling his pocket only, with no rake in his hand and no bag or bushel on the bank, lie would be pronounced insane and have a guardian put over him; but if he’ll spend his tune skimming and watering his mill: and selling his small potatoes for large Ones, or generally in skinning flints, he will probably be made guardian of somebody else.
—Journal, 30 August 1856If Christ should appear on earth he could on all hands be denounced as a mistaken, misguided man, insane and crazed.
—Journal, 19 October 1859If I had never thought of you as a friend, I could make much use of you as an acquaintance.
—Journal, 31 January 1852If I shall sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage.
—"Life Without Principle"If it is possible to conceive of an event outside to humanity, it is not of the slightest significance, though it were the explosion of a planet.
—Journal, 6 May 1854If it were not for death and funerals I think the institution of the Church would not stand longer.
—Journal, 16 November 1851If men were to be destroyed and the books they have written were to be transmitted to a new race of creatures, in a new world, what kind of record would be found in them of so remarkable a phenomenon as the rainbow?
—Journal, 13 March 1859If my friend would take a quarter part the pains to show me himself that he does to show me a piece of roast beef, I should feel myself irresistibly invited.
—Journal, 19 May 1856If one hesitates in his path, let him not proceed. Let him respect his doubts, for doubts, too, may have some divinity in them.
—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 27 March 1848If rivers come out of their icy prison thus bright and immortal, shall not I too resume my spring life with joy and hope?
—Journal, 29 February 1852If the meadows were untouched, I should no doubt see many more of the rare white and the beautiful smaller purple orchids there, as I now see a few along the shaded brooks and meadow’s edge.
—Journal, 29 July 1853If the race had never lived through a winter what would they think was coming?
—Journal, 8 November 1850If there is not something mystical in your explanation—something unexplainable—some elements of mystery, it is quite insufficient. If there is nothing in it which speaks to my imagination, what boots it? What sort of science is that which enriches thee understanding but robs the imagination?
—Journal, 25 December 1851If we can forget, we have done somewhat; if we can remember, we have done somewhat. Let us remember this.
—Journal, 7 July 1845