"If a man walks in the woods..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects more natural.”
“Improve every opportunity to be melancholy.”
“Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return-prepared to send beck our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, brother and sister, and wife and child and friends and never see them again,-if you have paid your debts and made your will, and settled your affairs and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.”
More on Society
“A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.”
“I... [am] convinced [man] has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
“A country cannot simultaneously prepare and prevent war. I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. The distinctions separating the social classes are false; in the last analysis they rest on force.”