In comparison with the philosophers of the East, we may say that modern Europe has yet given birth to none. Beside the vast and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat-Geeta, even our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully green and practical merely.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversIn dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversIn every man’s brain is the Sanscrit. The Vedas and their Angas are not so ancient as serene contemplation. Why will we be imposed on by antiquity?
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversIn most books, the I, of first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference.
—WaldenIn music are the centripetal and centrifugal forces. The universe needed only to hear a divine harmony that every star might fall into its proper place and assume a true sphericity.
—Journal, 3 July 1840In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
—"Walking"In my experience I have found nothing so truly impoverishing as what is called wealth, i.e. the command of greater means than you had before possessed, though comparatively few and slight still, for you thus inevitably acquire a more expensive habit of living, and even the very same necessaries and comforts cost you more than they once did. Instead of gaining, you have lost some independence, and if your income should be suddenly lessened, you would find yourself poor, though possessed of the same means which once made you rich.
—Journal, 20 January 1856In my short experience of human life I have found that the outward obstacles which stood in my way were not living men but dead institutions.
—Journal, 20 June 1846In obedience to an instinct of their nature men have pitched their cabins, and planted corn and potatoes within speaking distance of one another, and so formed towns and villages, but they have not associated, they have only assembled, and society has signified only a convention of men.
—Journal, 14 March 1838In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round,— for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost, — do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature.
—WaldenIn our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it.
—"Life Without Principle"In reality, history fluctuates as the face of the landscape from morning to evening. What is of moment is its hue and color. Time hides no treasures; we want not its then, but its now. We do not complain that the mountains in the horizon are blue and indistinct; they are the more like the heavens.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversIn short, as a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind, so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up.
—"Life without Principle"In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats more easier than I do.
—WaldenThe matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers