Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Suffering

• Cowards suffer, heroes enjoy.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Hero, Joy, Suffering

  Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865). “Letters to Various Persons”, p.184

• I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both inperson and property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait until they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Thinking, Support

  Civil Disobedience (1849) See Coolidge 2; Douglass 7; Andrew Jackson 7; John Knox 1; Wendell Phillips 3

• The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering for want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Doctors, Solitude, Suffering

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1861, Delphi Classics

• I did not know that mankind was suffering for want of gold.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Suffering, Gold, Want

  Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.79, Rowman & Littlefield

• Whether he sleeps or wakes,--whether he runs or walks,--whether he uses a microscope or a telescope, or his naked eye,--a man never discovers anything, never overtakes anything, or leaves anything behind, but himself. Whatever he says or does, he merely reports himself. If he is in love, he loves; if he is in heaven, he enjoys; if he is in hell, he suffers. It is his condition that determines his locality.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Sleep, Eye

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1871, Delphi Classics

• How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were tobegin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in the afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness and charity with goodness aforethought!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Christian, Men, Long

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.516, Delphi Classics

• Do not suffer your life to be taken by newspapers.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Taken, Suffering

  Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865). “Letters to Various Persons”, p.56

• The Jesuits were quite balked by those Indians who, being burned at the stake, suggested new modes of tortures to their tormentors. Being superior to physical suffering, it sometimes chanced that they were superior to any consolation which the missionaries could offer; and the law to do as you would be done by fell with less persuasiveness on the ears of those who, for their part, did not care how they were done by, who loved their enemies after a new fashion, and came very near freely forgiving them all they did.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Fashion, Law, Forgiving

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.53, Graphic Arts Books

• The inhabitants of Canada appeared to be suffering between two fires,--the soldiery and the priesthood.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Fire, Two, Suffering

  Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “A Yankee in Canada: With Anti-slavery and Reform Papers”, p.78

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