The Quotable Thoreau

by Henry David Thoreau

The most comprehensive and authoritative collection of Thoreau quotations ever published

Few writers are more quotable than Henry David Thoreau. His books, essays, journals, poems, letters, and unpublished manuscripts contain an inexhaustible treasure of epigrams and witticisms, from the famous ("The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation") to the obscure ("Who are the estranged? Two friends explaining") and the surprising ("I would exchange my immortality for a glass of small beer this hot weather"). The Quotable Thoreau , the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of Thoreau quotations ever assembled, gathers more than 2,000 memorable passages from this iconoclastic American author, social reformer, environmentalist, and self-reliant thinker. Including Thoreau's thoughts on topics ranging from sex to solitude, manners to miracles, government to God, life to death, and everything in between, the book captures Thoreau's profundity as well as his humor ("If misery loves company, misery has company enough"). Drawing primarily on The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau , published by Princeton University Press, The Quotable Thoreau is thematically arranged, fully indexed, richly illustrated, and thoroughly documented. For the student of Thoreau, it will be invaluable. For those who think they know Thoreau, it will be a revelation. And for the reader seeking sheer pleasure, it will be a joy.

Genres: Philosophy

552 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, philosopher, and abolitionist who is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.

In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."

Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.

More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...

http://thoreau.eserver.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...

http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....

http://www.biography.com/people/henry...

Reviews

[Jane]

Wherever men have lived there is a story to be told, and it depends chiefly on the story-teller or historian whether it is interesting or not.

Thoreau had a very direct, incisive turn of phrase; whether one agrees or disagrees with him, he never fails to be intriguing. Reading this was almost like reading Thoreau's diary, indeed much of the content was taken from his journals. This book contains over 2000 quotations on a range of subjects (see status updates) drawn from Thoreau's published works, journals and correspondence. As a consequence of the thematically arranged layout, the connection one feels to Thoreau's thoughts and ideals is intensified; because of the precision of his words, this reading experience felt very personal. In many ways I could relate to Thoreau's character, his affinity for solitude and inclination towards distance, both geographically and socially.

I see nothing permanent in the society around me & am not quite committed to any of its ways.

In addition, this volume contains character portraits of Thoreau from his contemporaries—both critical and complimentary—but all giving the impression of a genuine and unique personality.

[John]

I would recommend only for the person who is a Thoreau afficianado. It is a well-organized book with an excellent summary of his life. But it is somewhat like reading a dictionary or the thesaurus. It is probably better to read Thoreau as a "whole," whether through Walden or Cape Cod or The Maine Woods. This is more of a reference work; you have a whole range of subjects, but after a while, it is more of a quick blur than anything that is satisfying.

[James]

Pleasant in organization and easily digestible in size: read several entries at random with coffee and breakfast.

[Kirk]

Thoreau's nuggets of wisdom, thoughtfully organized into groups pertaining to a particular subject. And the editor even gives you the page number of the book from which it was taken (mind the edition, though), so you can go back to the source if you wish. Certainly there are going to be quotes that the reader believes deserving of inclusion in this compendium that didn't make it in; that's inevitable with any "best-of." Still, Cramer did a good enough job with the book that I would heartily recommend it. Sometimes you're reading a whole book by Thoreau (or anybody, for that matter) and your mind starts to wander and you gloss over a real gem. Hopefully this book will help you avoid that, and it's easy to reference thanks to the subject divisions and index.

My favorite quote that didn't make the book would fall under the Society heading:
"Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are."
That's some classic Thoreau right there, but apparently Cramer didn't think so when he read Walden. And I don't think this one was in there, either:
"There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness."
At any rate, there's a lot to love and learn from in this collection, so put the kettle on and hop to it.

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Are our serene moments mere foretastes of heaven, joys gratuitously vouchsafed to us as a consolation or simply a transient realization of what might be the whole tenor of our lives?

You cannot perceive bodily but with a serene mind.

Beauty is where it is perceived

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.

What does education often do! It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free meandering brook.

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

With what infinite & unwearied expectation & proclamations the cocks usher in every dawn as if there had never been one before.

As long as possible, live free and uncommitted.

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.

Now I yearn for one of those old meandering dry uninhabited roads which lead away from towns—which lead us away from temptation, which conduct to the outside of the earth—over its uppermost crust—where you may forget in what country you are travelling—where no farmer can complain that you are treading down his grass—no gentleman who has recently constructed a seat in the country that you are trespassing—on which you can go off at half-cock—and wave adieu to the village—along which you may travel like a pilgrim—going nowhither. Where travellers are not too often to be met. Where my spirit is free--
...There I have freedom in my thought and in my soul am free.

The ringing of the church bell is a much more melodious sound than any that is heard within the church.

Debauched and worn-out senses require the violent vibrations of an instrument to excite them, but sound and still youthful senses, not enervated by luxury, hear music in the wind and rain and running water. One would think from reading the critics that music was intermittent as a spring in the desert, depending on some Paganini or Mozart, or heard only when the Pierians or Euterpeans drive through the village; but music is perpetual, and only hearing is intermittent.

Listen to music religiously as if it were the last strain you might hear.

So few habitually intoxicate themselves with music, so many with alcohol. I think, perchance, I may risk it, it will whet my senses so.

What is there in music that it should so stir our deeps? We are all ordinarily in a state of desperation; such is our life; ofttimes it drives us to suicide. To how many, perhaps to most, life is barely tolerable, and if it were not for the fear of death or of dying, what a multitude would immediately commit suicide! But let us hear a strain of music, we are at once advertised of a life which no man had told us of, which no preacher preaches. Suppose I try to describe faithfully the prospect which a strain of music exhibits to me. The field of my life becomes a boundless plain, glorious to tread, with no death nor disappointment at the end of it. All meanness and trivialness disappear. I become adequate to any deed. No particulars survive this expansion; persons do not survive it. In the light of this strain there is no thou nor I. We are actually lifted above ourselves.

Truly the stars were given for a consolation to man.

A sky without clouds is a meadow without flowers.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Men have become the tools of their tools. How prompt we are to satisfy the hunger & thirst of our bodies; how slow to satisfy the hunger & thirst of our souls!

In order to avoid delusions I would fain let man go by & behold a universe in which man is but as a grain of sand.

I doubt if in the landscape there can be anything finer than a distant mountain range. They are a constant elevating influence.

I think that the ancient practice of burning the dead is far more tasteful and beautiful, for so the body is most speedily and cleanly returned to dust again, and its elements dispersed throughout nature.

We begin to die not in our senses or extremities but in our divine faculties. Our members may be sound, our sight and hearing perfect, but our genius and imagination betray signs of decay.

No man's thoughts are new, but the style of their expression is the never failing novelty which cheers and refreshes men.

Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

What is the singing of the birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love?

How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomenon to the preservation of moral & intellectual health.

I love nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails. In her midst I can be glad with an entire gladness. If this world was all man I could not stretch myself—I should lose all hope. He is constraint; she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world; she makes me content with this. None of the joy she supplies is subject to his rules & definitions. What he touches he taints. In thought he moralizes. One would think that no free joyful labor was possible to him.

Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he would otherwise be taxed to answer; while the only new question which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend it.

I do not prefer one religion or philosophy to another. I have no sympathy with the bigotry and ignorance which make transient & partial & puerile distinctions between one man's faith or form of faith & another's—as Christian & heathen. I pray to be delivered from narrowness, partiality, exaggeration, bigotry.

The society which I was made for is not here.

I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.

As some heads cannot carry much wine, so it would seem that I cannot bear so much society as you can. I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don't get enough of it this year I shall cry all the next.

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.

I was describing the other day my success in solitary and distant woodland walking outside the town. I do not go there to get my dinner, but to get that sustenance which my dinners only preserve me to enjoy, without which dinners are a vain repetition.

You think that I am impoverishing myself by withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.

I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations, and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head, and I am not where my body is; I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!

I thus from time to time break off my connection with eternal truths and go with the shallow stream of human affairs, grinding at the mill of the Phillistines.

Most men are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum & they have not discovered any continuous employment for man's nobler faculties.

The cheaper your amusements, the safer and saner.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundation under them.

The only excuse for reproduction is improvement. Nature abhors repetition.

What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact, that there are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

As long as possible live free and uncommitted.

All intelligences awake with the morning.

The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a divine or poetic life.

To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived [...] I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things.

[Max Stampa-Brown]

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