Henry David Thoreau May Quotations

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

One may be drunk with love without being any nearer to finding his mate.

I now first began to inhabit my house, I may say, when I began to use it for warmth as well as shelter.

I confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises.... While my townsmen and women are devoted in somany ways to the good of their fellows, I trust that one at least may be spared to other and less humane pursuits. You must have a genius for charity as well as for anything else. As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full.

As they say in geology, time never fails, there is always enough of it, so I may say, criticism never fails.

All questions rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed,but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the occasion say it.

Be not anxious to avoid poverty. In this way the wealth of the universe may be securely invested.

If I thought that I could speak with discrimination and impartiality of the nations of Christendom, I should praise them, but it tasks me too much. They seem to be the most civil and humane, but I may be mistaken.

You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied.

You may tell by looking at any twig of the forest, ay, at your very wood-pile, whether its winter is past or not.

To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done,and I trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the detriment of my domestic arrangements.

Art may varnish and gild, but it can do no more.

Faint heart never won true friend. O my friend, may it come to pass, once, that when you are my friend I may be yours.

We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves, that there may be grounds enough for friendship.

Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God himself.

A slight sound at evening lifts me up by the ears, and makes life seem inexpressibly serene and grand. It may be Uranus, or it may be in the shutter.

You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

Wherever you may seek solitude, men will ferret you out and compel you to belong to their desperate company of oddfellows.

Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself, That in my action I may soar as high As I can now discern with this clear eye.

Writing may be either the record of a deed or a deed. It is nobler when it is a deed.

The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow,-one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.

One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then

Spring. March fans it, April christens it, and May puts on its jacket and trousers.

No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.

What the banker sighs for, the meanest clown may have-leisure and a quiet mind.

Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

Be as the sailor who keeps the polestar in his eye. By so doing we may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we will maintain a true course.

Don't be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.

The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.

You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; may be you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it.

It is said that some Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we can imagine what a canoe may do.

Everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use.

A nation may be ever so civilized and yet lack wisdom.

Biography, too, is liable to the same objection; it should be autobiography. Let us not, as the Germans advise, endeavor to go abroad and vex our bowels that we may be somebody else to explain him. If I am not I, who will be?

In the planting of the seeds of most trees, the best gardeners do no more than follow Nature, though they may not know it.

To one who habitually endeavors to contemplate the true state of things, the political state can hardly be said to have any existence whatever. It is unreal, incredible, and insignificant to him, and for him to endeavor to extract the truth from such lean material is like making sugar from linen rags, when sugar-cane may be had.

A stranger may easily detect what is strange to the oldest inhabitant, for the strange is his province.

Heaven is not one of your fertile Ohio bottoms, you may depend on it.

I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha, or Christ, or Swedenborg, who are without the pale of their churches.

A man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion of nature by being buried in it.

A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government.

A fact may blossom into a truth.

I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

Where there is not discernment, the behavior even of the purest soul may in effect amount to coarseness.

Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man?... We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; -- not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.

A man may esteem himself happy when that which is his food is also his medicine.

Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.

You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.