Naturalist Quotes

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.

The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of pride he will see to it that others receive the liberty which he thus claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country. Not only should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and opinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he desires, provided only that in so doing he does not wrong his neighbor.

Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and unwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, far more so than many fantastic enterprises and sentimental experiments, and hence its singular success.

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

Let go of the past and live the future . . . Live the life you imagined.

No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.

A bore is someone who takes away my solitude and doesn't give me companionship in return.

When you are starting away, leaving your more familiar fields, for a little adventure like a walk, you look at every object with a traveler's, or at least with historical, eyes; you pause on the first bridge, where an ordinary walk hardly commences, and begin to observe and moralize like a traveler. It is worth the while to see your native village thus sometimes, as if you were a traveler passing through it, commenting on your neighbors as strangers.

Man's moral nature is a riddle which only eternity can solve.

It is only necessary that man should start a fence that Nature should carry it on and complete it. The farmer cannot plow quite up to the rails or wall which he himself has placed, and hence it often becomes a hedgerow and sometimes a coppice.

The best way to correct a mistake is to make it right.

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.

Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly towards 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?

Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.

I wished only to be set down in Canada, and take one honest walk there as I might in Concord woods of an afternoon.

Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters?

There have been some nations who could do nothing but construct tombs, and these are the only traces which they have left. They are the heathen.

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.

There is a homely old adage which runs: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.

The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the state because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.

The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.

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

The dinner even is only the parable of a dinner, commonly.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.

I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary.

. . . I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days. . . .

Music is perpetual, and only the hearing is intermittent.

Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

As polishing expresses the vein in marble, and grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. The hero is the sole patron of music.

Gradually the true Mason gains experience in using these working tools and can observe subtler and subtler indications of personal flaws.

Spring-an experience in immortality.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than vice president.

Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.

Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.

I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.

But why should not the New Englander try new adventures - not lay so much stress on his grain, his potato and grass crop, and his orchards - and raise other crops than these? Why concern ourselves so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new generation of men.

The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact.

It is the man determines what is said, not the words.

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life ... would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know.

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will tax the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.

The voice of nature is always encouraging.

This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work.

Let your walks now be a little more adventurous.

The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow,-one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be fought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense that is meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself from a political tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and moral tyrant. Now that the republic--the res- publica--has been settled, it is time to look after the res- privata,--the private state,--to see, as the Roman Senate charged its consuls, "ne quid res-PRIVATA detrimenti caperet," that the private state receive no detriment.

Live free, child of the mist,- and with respect to knowledge we are allchildren of the mist.

It is tranquil people who accomplish much.

If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

He who eats the fruit should at least plant the seed; ay, if possible, a better seed than that whose fruit he has enjoyed.

Life is a great adventure…accept it in such a spirit.

The Musketaquid, or Grass-ground River, though probably as old as the Nile or Euphrates, did not begin to have a place in civilized history until the fame of its grassy meadows and fish attracted settlers out of England in 1635, when it received the other but kindred name of CONCORD from the first plantation on its banks, which appears to have commenced in a spirit of peace and harmony. It will be Grass-ground River as long as grass grows and water runs here; it will be Concord River only while men lead peacable lives on its banks.