Famous quotes containing the words henry david thoreau, henry david, henry, david, thoreau, civil, disobedience, walden and/or years:
“On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom of many an ancient philosopher.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As for the sacred Scriptures, or Bibles of mankind, who in this town can tell me even their titles? Most men do not know that any nation but the Hebrews have had a scripture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is hardly a pioneer’s hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“Of what use were it, pray, to get a little wood to burn, to warm your body this cold weather, if there were not a divine fire kindled at the same time to warm your spirit?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life—I wrote this some years ago—that were worth the postage.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Luxury, or a refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life, had long been supposed the source of every corruption in government, and the immediate cause of faction, sedition, civil wars, and the total loss of liberty. It was, therefore, universally regarded as a vice, and was an object of declamation to all satyrists, and severe moralists.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The sturdy Irish arms that do the work are of more worth than oak or maple. Methinks I could look with equanimity upon a long street of Irish cabins, and pigs and children reveling in the genial Concord dirt; and I should still find my Walden Wood and Fair Haven in their tanned and happy faces.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“But to wish is first to think,
And to think is to be dumb,
And barren of a word to drop
That to a milder shore might come
And, years ahead, erect a crop.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)