David Quotes

Probably if our lives were more conformed to nature, we should not need to defend ourselves against her heats and colds, but findher our constant nurse and friend, as do plants and quadrupeds.

It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning.

The tree of Knowledge is a Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.

I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.

It is tranquil people who accomplish much.

Friendship is evanescent in every man's experience, and remembered like heat lightning in past summers.

Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

Where there is a brave man, in the thickest of the fight, there is the post of honor.

Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.

I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which these things would be by me unavoidable.

It is remarkable how many creatures live wild and free though secret in the woods.

The most domestic cat, which has lain on a rug all her days, appears quite at home in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself more native there than the regular inhabitants.

A man receives only what he is ready to receive... The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest of what he has observed, he does not observe.

The dry grasses are not dead for me. A beautiful form has as much life at one season as another.

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails.

I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls.

There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.

I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows.

Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable.

Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind.

There is absolutely no common sense, it is common non-sense.

When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.

Men are probably nearer the essential truth in their superstitions than in their science.

How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?

Whatever we leave to God, God does and blesses us.

In my walks, I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

My greatest skill has been to want but little.

Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried.

if i repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. what demon possessed me that i behaved so well?

Nature is full of genius, full of divinity.

Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

No human being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does.

There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in.

We can never have enough of Nature.

Be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be.

With all your science can you tell me how it is, and when it is, that light comes into the soul?

I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.

We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

A hero's love is as delicate as a maiden's.

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

Be not merely good. Be good for something.

I can alter my life by altering my attitude. He who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.

Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist. With the least inclination to be well, we should not be sick.

By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude.

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.

When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly, I think any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.

I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known.