Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Giving

• It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Giving Up, Learning

  Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.27, Cambridge University Press

• Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Inspirational, Money

  Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.125, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

• Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Music, Men, Piano

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.97, Courier Corporation

• It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination

  Henry David Thoreau

  Marriage, Nature, Creativity

  Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Material Faith: Thoreau on Science”, p.27, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• A bore is someone who takes away my solitude and doesn't give me companionship in return.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Giving, Solitude, Return

• Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison, the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. They do not know how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Giving Up, War, Men

• When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Government, Giving, Haste

  Civil Disobedience (1849)

• Give me a Wildness whose glance no civilization can endure.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Civilization, Giving, Glances

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.48, David M Gross

• It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Hands, Giving

  Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.207, North Point Press

• If you give money, spend yourself with it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Money, Giving, Charity

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.119

• I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Hero, Giving

  Henry David Thoreau, Carl Hovde (1980). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.140, Princeton University Press

• No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Giving, Lasts

  Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Uncommon Learning: Thoreau on Education”, p.59, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Regret, Men, Evil

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Civil Disobedience and Other Essays”, p.5, Courier Corporation

• It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune; or the asteroid Astr

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dream, Appreciate, Giving

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.482, Simon and Schuster

• We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Memorable, Intelligent

  Henry David Thoreau (1894). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: With Bibliographical Introductions and Full Indexes”

• I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Opportunity, Years

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.163, Yale University Press

• Give me the old familiar walk, postoffice and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten. We'll go nutting once more. We'll pluck the nut of the world, and crack it in the winter evenings. Theaters and all other sightseeing are puppet-shows in comparison. I will take another walk to the Cliff, another row on the river, another skate on the meadow, be out in the first snow, and associate with the winter birds. Here I am at home. In the bare and bleached crust of the earth I recognize my friend.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Home, Winter

• If a man is rich and strong anywhere, it must be on his native soil. Here I have been these forty years learning the language of these fields that I may the better express myself. If I should travel to the prairies, I should much less understand them, and my past life would serve me but ill to describe them. Many a weed here stands for more of life to me than the big trees of California would if I should go there. We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Weed, Travel, Strong

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.346, Yale University Press

• If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Years, Giving

• Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Giving, Poverty, Wealth

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.121, Graphic Arts Books

• Not secondary to the sun, she gives us his blaze again, Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day... In Heaven queen she is among the spheres; She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Queens, Moon, Flames

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.247, Simon and Schuster

• The imagination, give it the least license, dives deeper and soars higher than Nature goes.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, Giving, Imagination

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.186, Cosimo, Inc.

• Every day a new picture is painted and framed, held up for half an hour, in such lights as the Great Artist chooses, and then withdrawn, and the curtain falls. And then the sun goes down, and long the afterglow gives light.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Fall, Artist, Light

  Henry David Thoreau, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1906). “Journal, ed. by B. Torrey, 1837-1846, 1850-Nov. 3, 1861”

• 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.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Friendship, Giving, Meals

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

• A gun will give you the body, not the bird

  Henry David Thoreau

  Gun, Giving, Bird

  Quoted in Colin Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

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