Henry David Thoreau Quotations: RELATIONSHIPS
It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are yourself the slave-driver.—Journal, 1845-47
It is remarkable that no pains is taken to teach children to distinguish colors. I am myself uncertain about the names of many.—Journal, 28 January 1852
It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book. Any distinguished traveler who comes to our shores is likely to get more dinners and speeches of welcome than he can well dispose of, but the best books, if noticed at all, meet with coldness and suspicion, or, what is worse, gratuitous, off-hand criticism.—"Thomas Carlyle and His Works"
It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate.—Journal, 6 August 1851
It would give me such joy to know that a friend had come to see me and yet that pleasure I seldom if ever experience.—Journal, 23 December 1851
Let me forever go in search of myself; never for a moment think that I have found myself; be a stranger to myself, never a familiar, seeking acquaintance still.—Journal, 16 July 1851
Let me say to you and to myself in one breath: Cultivate the tree which you have found to bear fruit in your soil. Regard not your past failures nor successes. All the past is equally a failure and a success; it is success in as much as it offers you the present opportunity.—Journal, after 16 July 1850
Man is the artificer of his own happiness.—Journal, 21 January 1838
Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray, i.e. we are not looking for it. So, in the largest sense, we find only the world we look for.—Journal, 2 July 1857
May I be to myself as one is to me whom I love, a dear and cherished object.—Journal, 18 July 1851
