The voices / 16 fragments

Henry D. Thoreau

Dates not recorded

Personal byline in the 1901 Thoughts anthology. Basic source-backed attribution identity; lifetime and independent authorship verification not established here.

Author and source reference ↗

▷ Play this voice Search within this voice ↗Place in time ↗mind knowledge friendship love learning happiness life nature

Historical source references

Complete signed selection 12; printed byline: Henry D
Complete signed selection 16; printed byline: Henry D
Complete signed selection 25; printed byline: Henry D
Complete signed selection 27; printed byline: Henry D
Complete signed selection 50; printed byline: Thoreau; New York: Dodge Publishing Company, 1901
Complete signed selection 84; printed byline: Thoreau; New York: Dodge Publishing Company, 1901
Complete signed selection 123; printed byline: H
Complete signed selection 138; printed byline: Henry D
Complete signed selection 150; printed byline: Henry D
Complete signed selection 274; printed byline: Thoreau; New York: Dodge Publishing Company, 1901
Complete signed selection 356; printed byline: Henry D
Complete signed selection 386; printed byline: Henry D
Complete signed selection 418; printed byline: Henry D
Complete signed selection 540; printed byline: Thoreau; New York: Dodge Publishing Company, 1901
Complete signed selection 50; printed byline: Henry David Thoreau; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911; printed copyright 1907
Complete signed selection 385; printed byline: Henry David Thoreau; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911; printed copyright 1907

Archive entries

01Undated

That man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset, while revolutions vex the world.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

02Undated

Associate reverently, and as much as you can, with your loftiest thought.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

03Undated

Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

04Undated

I believe that the mind can be profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

05Undated

Beware lest thy friend learn to tolerate one frailty of thine, and so an obstacle be raised to the progress of thy love.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

06Undated

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

07Undated

The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. If he knows I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

08Undated

Be sure you give men the best of your wares though they be poor enough; and the gods will help you to lay by a better store for the future.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

09Undated

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

10Undated

As you grow old, guard against the tendency to live more coarsely, to relax in your discipline. Obey your finest instincts. Be fastidious to the extreme of sanity.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

11Undated

Be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be. Man’s noblest gift to man is his sincerity, for it embraces his integrity also.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

12Undated

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of a man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

13Undated

Let nothing come between you and the light.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

14Undated

Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man’s destiny were not equally so?

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

15Undated

If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more starry, more immortal,—that is your success. All nature is your congratulation and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself.

Henry D. Thoreau / quote

16Undated

Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them—that it was a vain endeavor?

Henry D. Thoreau / quote