Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Praise

• Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Common Sense, Perception

  1854 Walden, or Life in the Woods,'Conclusion'.

• Fame is not just. She never finely or discriminatingly praises, but coarsely hurrahs.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Praise, Fame

  Henry David Thoreau (1884). “Summer: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”

• We begin to praise when we begin to see a thing needs our assistance.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Encouraging, Needs, Praise

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.14, Courier Corporation

• I am not afraid of praise, for I have practiced it on myself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Praise, Not Afraid

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1810, Delphi Classics

• 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.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Civilization, Tasks, May

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.46, Xist Publishing

• When the chopper would praise a pine, he will commonly tell you that the one he cut was so big that a yoke of oxen stood on its stump; as if that were what the pine had grown for, to become the footstool of oxen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Cutting, Oxen, Yoke

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.234

• The life without men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Success, Men, Kind

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.22, Graphic Arts Books

• Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him forever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memorable praise of God.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Communication, Memorable

  Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.75, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• For a companion, I require one who will make an equal demand on me with my own genius. Such a one will always be rightly tolerant.It is suicide, and corrupts good manners, to welcome any less than this. I value and trust those who love and praise my aspiration rather than my performance. If you would not stop to look at me, but look whither I am looking, and farther, then my education could not dispense with your company.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Friendship, Suicide, Ambition

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.212, Delphi Classics

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