Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Songs

• Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Song, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.27, Heron Dance Press

• If you will not try, you will go to your grave with your song still inside you.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Song, Trying, Graves

• Christianity only hopes. It has hung its harp on the willows, and cannot sing a song in a strange land. It has dreamed a sad dream, and does not yet welcome the morning with joy. The mother tells her falsehoods to her child, but, thank heaven, the child does not grow up in its parent's shadow. Our mother's faith has not grown with her experience. Her experience has been too much for her. The lesson of life was too hard for her to learn.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Mother, Dream, Song

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.71, Delphi Classics

• In Homer and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral poets. The Iliad is not Sabbath but morning reading, and men cling to this old song, because they still have moments of unbaptized and uncommitted life, which give them an appetite for more.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Song, Morning, Reading

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.275, Delphi Classics

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