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There is such a thing as caste, even in the West but it is comparatively faint it is conservatism here. It says, forsake not your calling, outrage no institution, use no violence, rend no bonds the State is thy parent. Its virtue or manhood is wholly filial.

Henry David Thoreau

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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Poet
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Virtue
Institution
Castes
Parent
Conformity
Forsake
State
Calling
Faint
Use
India
Bonds
States
Institutions
Outrage
Rend
Even
West
Conservatism
Filial
Thing
Says
Manhood
Comparatively
Violence
Wholly
Caste

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.
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To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health.
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If rightly made, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal, a creature of two elements, related by one half its structure to some swift and shapely fish, and by the other to some strong-winged and graceful bird.
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Let a man take time enough for the most trivial deed, though it be but the paring of his nails. The buds swell imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion,--as if the short spring days were an eternity.
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I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.
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Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.
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If it is the result of a pure love, there can be nothing sensual in marriage. Chastity is something positive, not negative. It isthe virtue of the married especially. All lusts or base pleasures must give place to loftier delights. They who meet as superior beings cannot perform the deeds of inferior ones.
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We hate the kindness which we understand.
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Most think that they are above being supported by the town but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which would be more disreputable.
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It is strange to talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.
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There is all the poetry in the world in a name. It is a poem which the mass of men hear and read. What is poetry in the common sense, but a hearing of such jingling names? I want nothing better than a good word. The name of a thing may easily be more than the thing itself to me.
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I wished only to be set down in Canada, and take one honest walk there as I might in Concord woods of an afternoon.
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I do not value any view of the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very largely and absorb much of the attention. Man is but the place where I stand, and the prospect hence is infinite.
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Why does it [government] always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?
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We should seek to be fellow students with the pupil, and should learn of, as well as with him, if we would be most helpful to him.
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Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man.
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Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.
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We love to hear some men speak, though we hear not what they say the very air they breathe is rich and perfumed, and the sound of their voices falls on the ear like the rustling of leaves or the crackling of the fire. They stand many deep.
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That grand old poem called Winter
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Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God's property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.
Henry David Thoreau