Quote

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.

Henry David Thoreau

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Translator
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Give
Marriage
Delight
Inferiors
Nothing
Pure
Result
Pleasures
Isthe
Must
Ones
Negative
Superior
Loftier
Giving
Virtue
Meet
Base
Lusts
Something
Results
Beings
Superiors
Chastity
Love
Pleasure
Positive
Lust
Delights
Place
Married
Perform
Inferior
Cannot
Especially
Deeds
Sensual

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
He who eats the fruit should at least plant the seed ay, if possible, a better seed than that whose fruit he has enjoyed.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The birds I heard today, which, fortunately, did not come within the scope of my science, sang as freshly as if it had been the first morning of creation.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The fact is, mental philosophy is very like Poverty, which, you know, begins at home and indeed, when it goes abroad, it is poverty itself.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Nature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Go confidently ... Live the life that you imagined.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten today, that I might go a- fishing. That's the true industry for poets. It is the only trade I have learned.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
In society you will not find health, but in nature. Unless our feet at least stood in the midst of nature, all our faces would bepale and livid. Society is always diseased, and the best is the most so.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
An unclean person is universally a slothful one.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,--the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,--at least apparently,--but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Music is the crystallization of sound.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
As far as our noblest hardwood forests are concerned, the animals, especially squirrels and jays, are our greatest and almost only benefactors. It is to them that we owe this gift. It is not in vain that the squirrels live in or about every forest tree, or hollow log, and every wall and heap of stones.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Some have asked if the stock of men could not be improved,--if they could not be bred as cattle. Let Love be purified, and all therest will follow. A pure love is thus, indeed, the panacea for all the ills of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I learned from my two years' experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one's necessary food that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength.
Henry David Thoreau