Nov
15
2011
“Walden” by Henry David Thoreau
The following is a quote dump from Walden, a book that inspires me to step away, seek simplicity, and feel comfortable with solitude.
Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be any thing but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance — which his growth requires — who has so often to use his knowledge? p. 4
The mass of men lead quiet lives of desperation. p. 6
But man’s capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried. p. 8
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind. p. 12
The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others? p. 17
I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. p. 21
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. p. 23
In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. p. 24
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. p. 31
Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. p. 32
Those conveniences which the student requires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost him or somebody else ten times as great a sacrifice of life as they would with proper management on both sides. Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made. p. 46
I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot. p. 48
The spending the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once. “What!” exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from all the shanties in the land, “is not this railroad which we have built a good thing?” Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you might have done worse; but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time better than digging in the dirt. p. 50
I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment. p. 51
For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living … for my greatest skill has been to want but little. p. 64
I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is only by a mathematical point that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the pole-star in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course. p. 66
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. p. 85
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. p. 85
Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in our extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business. p. 92
Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. p. 96
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. p. 102
It is time that villages were universities, and their elder inhabitants the fellows of universities, with leisure — if they are indeed so well off — to pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives. p. 103
Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. p. 106
Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour. p. 106
Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then. p. 112
It is surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time. p. 161
Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. p. 162
The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends. p. 163
Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth. p. 185
I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them; again, as I did not work hard, I did not have to eat hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food. p. 193
[Footnote] Our ignorance of our own financial lives is the greatest threat to our independence. p. 194
Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventures. p. 195
A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. p. 251-2
We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us. p. 294
The universe is wider than our views of it. p. 299
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. p. 300-1
The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. p. 302
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to his own music which he hears, however measured or far away. p. 305
