The present is the instant work and near process of living, and will be found in the last analysis to be nothing more nor less than digestion. Sometimes, it is true, it is indigestion.
—Journal, after 21 October 1842The price of friendship is the total surrender of yourself; no lesser kindness, no ordinary attentions and offerings will buy it.
—Journal, 13 July 1857The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.
—"Resistance to Civil Government"The prosaic mind sees things badly, or with the bodily sense; but the poet sees them clad in beauty, with the spiritual sense.
—Journal, 9 December 1859The prospect of the young is forward and unbounded, mingling the future with the present. In the declining day the thoughts make haste to rest in darkness, and hardly look forward to the ensuing morning. The thoughts of the old prepare for night and slumber. The same hopes and prospects are not for him who stands upon the rosy mountain-tops of life, and him who expects the setting of his earthly day.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversThe question is whether you can bear freedom. At present the vast majority of men, whether white or black, require the discipline of labor which enslaves them for their own good.
—Journal, 1 September 1853The rich man . . . is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.
—"Resistance to Civil Government"The ringing of the church bell is a much more melodious sound than any that is heard within the church.
—Journal, 2 January 1842The sad memory of departed friends is soon incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as their monuments are overgrown with moss. Nature doth thus kindly heal every wound.
—Journal, 13 March 1842The Scarlet Oak asks a clear sky and the brightness of late October days. These bring out its colors.
—"Autumnal Tints"The scholar is not apt to make his most familiar experience come gracefully to the aid of his expression.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversThe scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher truth for the calluses on his palms.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversThe scholar might frequently emulate the propriety and emphasis of the farmer’s call to his team, and confess that if that were written it would surpass his labored sentences. Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month’s labor in the farmer’s almanac, to restore our tone and spirits. A sentence should read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversThe scholar requires hard and serious labor to give an impetus to his thought. He will learn to grasp the pen firmly so, and wield it gracefully and effectively, as an axe or a sword.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversThe scholar requires hard labor as an impetus to his pen. He will learn to grasp it as firmly and wield it as gracefully and effectually as an axe or a sword.
—Journal, 5 January 1842The scholar’s and the farmers’s work are strictly analogous. . . . He is doing like myself. My barn-yard is my journal.
—Journal, 20 January 1852