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Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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Famous Henry David Thoreau Quotes

“Unsere Geselligkeit ist im allgemeinen zu billig. Wir treffen einander in viel zu kurzen Zeitabständen, lassen uns nicht die Zeit, neuen Wert füreinander zu gewinnen. Wir treffen uns dreimal am Tag zu den Mahlzeiten und geben uns gegenseitig Kostproben von dem ranzigen Stück Käse, das wir sind. Wir müssen uns auf bestimmte Regeln, Etikette und Höflichkeit genannt, einigen, um unsere häufigen Zusammenkünfte erträglich zu gestalten und es nicht zum offenen Krieg zwischen uns kommen zu lassen. [...] Wir leben so dicht nebeneinander, daß wir uns im Wege sind und übereinander stoplern. Dadurch verlieren wir meiner Ansicht nach an gegenseitiger Achtung.”

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Author:Henry David Thoreau
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“Thoreau the “Patron Saint of Swamps” because he enjoyed being in them and writing about them said, “my temple is the swamp… When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most impenetrable and to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum… I seemed to have reached a new world, so wild a place…far away from human society. What’s the need of visiting far-off mountains and bogs, if a half-hour’s walk will carry me into such wildness and novelty.”

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Book:Walden and Other Writings
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“In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.”

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Book:Walden or, Life in the Woods
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“I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived ‘from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre,’ to the Holy Land, till the children- exclaimed, ‘There goes a SainteTerrer,’ Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean….For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.”

WalkingSpiritualismHoly LandSaunter
Book:Walking
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“Die Einfachheit und Nacktheit des primitiven Menschen hatte wenigstens den Vorteil, daß er sich in der Natur als Gast fühlte. War er durch Nahrung und Schlaf erquickt, dann dachte er wieder ans Weiterziehen. Er lebte in der Welt gleichsam wie in einem Zelt, durchstreifte die Täler, überquerte die Ebenen oder kletterte auf Berge. Aber die Menschen haben sich zu Werkzeugen ihrer Werkzeuge gemacht! Der Mensch, der sich frei und unabhängig Beeren pflückte, wenn er hungrig war, ist Farmer geworden, und der einst unter einem Baum Schutz suchte, Hausbesitzer. Wir schlagen nicht mehr für eine Nacht unser Zelt auf, sondern haben uns auf der Erde ansässig gemacht und den Himmel vergessen. Wir haben die christliche Kultur angenommen, doch nur als verbesserte Methode der Agri-Kultur. Wir haben für diese Welt ein Familienhaus und für die andere ein Familiengrab errichtet.”

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Book:Walden or, Life in the Woods
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“Che razza di Paese è quello che trasforma i campi di mirtilli in proprietà privata? Quando passo accanto a quei terreni lungo la strada, avverto nel petto un tuffo al cuore. Vedo la rovina incombere sulla terra. In quel luogo un velo si è steso sulla Natura. Mi allontano veloce dal posto maledetto. Niente può sfigurare maggiormente il suo bel volto. Non posso fare a meno d'immaginarlo per sempre come un luogo dove attraenti e gradevoli bacche si convertono in denaro, dove il mirtillo viene oltraggiato. È vero, esiste il diritto di trasformare le bacche in proprietà privata così come esiste quello di fare altrettanto dell'erba e degli alberi - un gesto non più grave di migliaia di altre pratiche accettate dall'uso - ma questa è la peggiore di tutte perché indica quanto esse siano negative e verso quale obiettivo la nostra civiltà e la divisione del lavoro tendano naturalmente, e cioè ad attribuire un prezzo a tutto.”

FilosofiaNaturaAmbienteEcologia
Book:Mirtilli o L'importanza delle piccole cose
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“Andai nei boschi perché desideravo vivere deliberatamente, affrontare solo i fatti essenziali della vita, e vedere se non potessi imparare cosa avesse da insegnare, senza scoprire, giunto alla morte, di non aver vissuto. Non desideravo vivere ciò che non era una vita, per quanto caro mi sia il vivere; né desideravo praticare la rassegnazione, a meno che non fosse necessaria. Volevo vivere in profondità e succhiare tutto il midollo della vita, vivere in modo così risoluto e spartano da sbaragliare tutto quanto non fosse vita; da aprirmi con la falce un varco ampio e raso terra, da spingere nell'angolo la vita e ridurla ai minimi termini; e, se si fosse dimostrata essere meschina, da arrivare, perché no?, alla sua completa e genuina meschinità, rendendola pubblica al mondo; o se fosse stata sublime, da conoscerla per esperienza; e da essere in grado di darne un resoconto sincero nella mia successiva escursione letteraria. Perché gran parte degli uomini, mi pare, ha una strana incertezza al riguardo, se sia del diavolo o di Dio, e ha _un po' frettolosamente_ concluso che il primo fine dell'uomo su questa terra è "rendere gloria a Dio e goderlo per l'eternità".”

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Author:Henry David Thoreau
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“Jamás existirá un Estado realmente libre e iluminado hasta cuando ese Estado reconozca al individuo como un poder más alto e independiente, del cual se deriva su propio poder y autoridad y lo trate de acuerdo a ello. Me complace imaginar un Estado que finalmente pueda darse el lujo de ser justo con todos, y que trate al individuo con respecto; más aún, que no llegue a pensar que es inconsistente con su propia tranquilidad si unos cuantos viven separados de él, no mezclándose con él, sin abrazarlo, pero cumpliendo con su obligación de vecinos y compañeros.”

EstadoAutoridadIndividuoDesobediencia Civil
Book:On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
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“Si tenéis alguna empresa ante vosotros, tratad de hacerla con las ropas viejas. A los hombres les hace falta, no algo con lo que hacer, sino algo que hacer, o mejor, algo que ser. Tal vez no deberíamos procurarnos un traje nuevo, por harapiento y sucio que esté el viejo, hasta no habernos conducido, empeñado o embarcado de tal modo que podamos sentirnos hombres nuevos en el viejo.”

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Book:Walden or, Life in the Woods
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“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”

InspirationalMotivational
Book:Walden or, Life in the Woods
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“No; sed Colones de los continentes y mundos enteramente nuevos de vuestro interior y abrid nuevas vías, no para el comercio, sino para las ideas. Todo hombre es dueño y señor de un reino junto al cual el imperio terrestre del zar no es sino una nimiedad, un rimerillo dejado por el hielo. Sin embargo, algunos que no se tienen respeto a sí mismos pueden pasar por patriotas y sacrificar lo más grande a lo más vano. Aman el suelo que conformará su tumba, pero no sienten simpatía alguna por el espíritu que anima aún su propio barro.”

LibertadPatriotismo
Book:Walden or, Life in the Woods
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“We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate... We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”

Brave New WorldAmusing Ourselves To Death
Book:Walden or, Life in the Woods
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“Der Morgen ist die Stunde des Erwachens, die bedeutungsvollste Zeit des Tages, in der wir am wenigsten schlafbedürftig sind, in der zumindest eine Stunde lang ein Teil von uns wach ist, der alle übrige Tages- und Nachtzeit schlummert. [...] Und für den, dessen elastische, lebhafte Gedanken mit der Sonne Schritt halten, ist der Tag ein immerwährender Morgen, unabhängig vom Stundenschlag, vom Tun und Gehaben der Menschen. [...] Wach sein heißt leben. [...] Wir müssen lernen, wieder zu erwachen und wach zu bleiben. Nicht auf mechanischem Wege, sondern durch ein ständiges Erwarten der Morgendämmerung, die uns auch in unserem tiefsten Schlaf nicht verläßt. Ich weiß nichts, das ermutigender wäre als die Fähigkeit des Menschen, sein Leben durch bewußtes Bemühen auf eine höhere Stufe zu bringen.”

LebenMorgen
Book:Walden or, Life in the Woods
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“The childish and savage taste of men and women for new patterns keeps how many shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes that they may discover the particular figure which this generation requires to-day. The manufacturers have learned that this taste is merely whimsical. Of two patterns which differ only by a few threads more or less of a particular color, the one will be sold readily, the other lie on the shelf, though it frequently happens that after the lapse of a season the latter becomes the most fashionable. Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable.”

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Book:Walden and Other Writings
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“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obli­gation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”

VotingRight To Vote
Book:On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
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“I believed that the woods were not tenantless, but choke-full of honest spirits as good as myself any day– not an empty chamber in which chemistry was left to work alone, but an inhabited house. It suggested, too, that the same experience always gives birth to the same sort of belief or religion. One revelation has been made to the Indian, another to the white man. I have much to learn of the Indian, nothing of the missionary. I am not sure but all that would tempt me to teach the Indian my religion would be his promise to teach me his. Long enough I had heard of irrelevant things; now at length I was glad to make acquaintance with the light that dwells in rotten wood.”

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Book:Canoeing in the Wilderness
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