To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversTo set about living a true life is to go on a journey to a distant country, gradually to find ourselves surrounded by new scenes and men; and as long as the old are around me, I know that I am not in any true sense living a new or a better life. The outward is only the outside of that which is within.
—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 27 March 1848To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and biography.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversTo the philosopher all sects all nations are alike. I like Brahma, Hare, Buddha, the Great Spirit, as well as God.
—Journal, 26 April 1850To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery. Who chains me to this dull town?
—"Resistance to Civil Government"To the thinker, all institutions of men, as all imperfection, viewed from the point of equanimity, are legitimate subjects of humor.
—"Thomas Carlyle and His Works"To us snow and cold seem a mere delaying of the spring. How far we are from understanding the value of these things in the economy of Nature!
—Journal, 8 March 1859To walk in a winter morning in a wood where these birds abounded, their native woods, and hear the wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and shrill for miles over the resounding earth, drowning the feebler notes of other birds,—think of it!
—WaldenTo what end do I lead a simple life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives? — and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared to live more worthily and profitably?
—Thoreau to H. G. O. Blake, 26 September 1855Today you may write a chapter on the advantages of traveling, and tomorrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not traveling.
—Journal, 11 November 1851Tom pointed away over the lake to a bald eagle’s nest, which was plainly visible more than a mile off, on a pine, high above the surrounding forest, and was frequented from year to year by the same pair, and held sacred by him.
—The Maine WoodsTreat your friends for what you know them to be—regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.
—Journal, 31 December 1851Truth has properly no opponent, for nothing gets so far up on the other side as to be opposite.
—Journal, 12 February 1840Truth is ever returning into herself. I glimpse one feature to-day, another to-morrow; and the next day they are blended.
—Journal, 13 November 1837Truth strikes us from behind, and in the dark, as well as from before and in broad day-light.
—Journal, 5 November 1837Two herons, Ardea herodias, with their long and slender limbs relieved against the sky, were seen travelling high over our heads,—their lofty and silent flight, as they were wending their way at evening, surely not to alight in any marsh on the earth’s surface, but, perchance, on the other side of our atmosphere, a symbol for the ages to study, whether impressed upon the sky, or sculptured amid the hieroglyphics of Egypt.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversUnder a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison.
—"Resistance to Civil Government"