"We could not help being struck by..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men's necessities, while elsewhereshe was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim's shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“We believe that the possibility of the future far exceeds the accomplishment of the past. We review the past with the common sense, but we anticipate the future with transcendental senses. In our sanest moments we find ourselves naturally expecting or prepared for far greater changes than any which we have experienced within the period of distinct memory, only to be paralleled by experiences which are forgotten.”
“At the extreme north, the voyagers are obliged to dance and act plays for employment.”
“f the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go; perchance it will wear smooth - certainly the machine will wear out... but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.”
More on Nature
“Probe the universe in a myriad of points. ... He is a wise man who has taken many views; to whom stones and plants and animals and a myriad of objects have each suggesting something, contributed something.”
“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.”
“All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature.”
More on Human Condition
“We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years.”
“Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.”
“Description of man: dependence, longing for independence, need.”