Thoreau believed that one of the arts of life was…

Thoreau believed that one of the arts of life was to make the most of it. He loved the multum in parvo, or pot-luck; to boil up the little into the big. Thus, he was in the habit of saying, — Give me healthy senses, let me be thoroughly alive, and breathe freely in the very flood-tide of the living world. But this should have availed him little, if he had not been at the same time copiously endowed with the power of recording what he imbibed. His senses truly lived twice.

Quotes about Thoreau

William Ellery Channing in Thoreau: the Poet-naturalist: With Memorial Verses (1873), Ch. 11 Multum In Parvo

Other Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one. - View Quote Details on Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority…
Sphere Music — Some sounds seem to reverberate along the plain, and then settle to earth again like dust; such are Noise, Discord, Jargon. But such only as spring heavenward, and I may catch from steeples and hilltops in their upward course, which are the more refined parts of the former, are the true sphere music — pure, unmixed music — in which no wail mingles. - View Quote Details on Sphere Music — Some sounds seem to reverberate along the…
I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character — his immortal life; and so it becomes your cause wholly, and is not his in the least. Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an angel of light. - View Quote Details on I am here to plead his cause with you. I…
A true account of the actual is the rarest poetry, for common sense always takes a hasty and superficial view. - View Quote Details on A true account of the actual is the rarest poetry,…
We are apt to imagine that this hubbub of Philosophy, Literature, and Religion, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth’s axle. But if a man sleeps soundly, he will forget it all between sunset and dawn. - View Quote Details on We are apt to imagine that this hubbub of Philosophy,…
It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. - View Quote Details on It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant…
It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him. They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others. - View Quote Details on It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a…
The Indian…stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily and gracefully. But the civilized man has the habits of the house. His house is a prison. - View Quote Details on The Indian…stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant…
Have you learned the alphabet of heaven and can count three? Do you know the number of God’s family? Can you put mysteries into words? Do you presume to fable of the ineffable? Pray, what geographer are you, that speak of heaven’s topography? Whose friend are you that speak of God’s personality?… Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad. - View Quote Details on Have you learned the alphabet of heaven and can count…
As if our birth had at first sundered things, and we had been thrust up through into nature like a wedge, and not till the wound heals and the scar disappears, do we begin to discover where we are, and that nature is one and continuous everywhere. - View Quote Details on As if our birth had at first sundered things, and…