Walden — Henry David Thoreau

Walden

Henry David Thoreau · Лицензия: Public domain · Источник

• "O Christian, will you send me back? ¶281
• This is the house that I built; This is the man that lives in the house that I built; ¶284
• but they did not know that the third line was, ¶285
• These are the folks that worry the man That lives in the house that I built. ¶286
• I did not fear the hen-harriers, for I kept no chickens; but I feared the men-harriers rather. ¶287
• I felt proud to know that the liberties of Massachusetts and of our fatherland were in such safe keeping; and as I turned to my hoeing again I was filled with an inexpressible confidence, and pursued my labor cheerfully with a calm trust in the future. ¶297
• But to be more particular, for it is complained that Mr. Coleman has reported chiefly the expensive experiments of gentlemen farmers, my outgoes were,-- ¶301
• My income was (patrem familias vendacem, non emacem esse oportet), from ¶303
• "And as he spake, his wings would now and then Spread, as he meant to fly, then close again--" ¶307
• so that we should suspect that we might be conversing with an angel. Bread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or Nature, to share any unmixed and heroic joy. ¶308
• "Nec bella fuerunt, Faginus astabat dum scyphus ante dapes." ¶315
• "Nor wars did men molest, When only beechen bowls were in request." ¶316
• "You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass--the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends." ¶317
• A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows. ¶336
• It is no dream of mine, To ornament a line; I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven Than I live to Walden even. I am its stony shore, And the breeze that passes o'er; In the hollow of my hand Are its water and its sand, And its deepest resort Lies high in my thought. ¶345
• No, no; if the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone. Let our lakes receive as true names at least as the Icarian Sea, where "still the shore" a "brave attempt resounds." ¶351
• I set out one afternoon to go a-fishing to Fair Haven, through the woods, to eke out my scanty fare of vegetables. My way led through Pleasant Meadow, an adjunct of the Baker Farm, that retreat of which a poet has since sung, beginning,-- ¶361
• "Thy entry is a pleasant field, Which some mossy fruit trees yield Partly to a ruddy brook, By gliding musquash undertook, And mercurial trout, Darting about." ¶362
• "And here a poet builded, In the completed years, For behold a trivial cabin That to destruction steers." ¶364
• "Do you ever fish?" I asked. "Oh yes, I catch a mess now and then when I am lying by; good perch I catch."--"What's your bait?" "I catch shiners with fishworms, and bait the perch with them." "You'd better go now, John," said his wife, with glistening and hopeful face; but John demurred. ¶366
• "Landscape where the richest element Is a little sunshine innocent."... ¶370
• "No one runs to revel On thy rail-fenced lea."... ¶371
• "Debate with no man hast thou, With questions art never perplexed, As tame at the first sight as now, In thy plain russet gabardine dressed."... ¶372
• "Come ye who love, And ye who hate, Children of the Holy Dove, And Guy Faux of the state, And hang conspiracies From the tough rafters of the trees!" ¶373
• "yave not of the text a pulled hen That saith that hunters ben not holy men." ¶380
• "How happy's he who hath due place assigned To his beasts and disafforested his mind! . . . . . . . Can use this horse, goat, wolf, and ev'ry beast, And is not ass himself to all the rest! Else man not only is the herd of swine, But he's those devils too which did incline Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse." ¶390
• Sometimes I had a companion in my fishing, who came through the village to my house from the other side of the town, and the catching of the dinner was as much a social exercise as the eating of it. ¶396
• _Poet._ How now, Hermit, is it too soon? I have got just thirteen whole ones, beside several which are imperfect or undersized; but they will do for the smaller fry; they do not cover up the hook so much. Those village worms are quite too large; a shiner may make a meal off one without finding the skewer. ¶401
• _Hermit._ Well, then, let's be off. Shall we to the Concord? There's good sport there if the water be not too high. ¶402

НазадДальше →Книги изречений