Henry David Thoreau Quotations: RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY
In every man’s brain is the Sanscrit. The Vedas and their Angas are not so ancient as serene contemplation. Why will we be imposed on by antiquity?—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
In friendship we worship moral beauty without the formality of religion. —Journal, 1837-1847
In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it.—"Life Without Principle"
In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats more easier than I do.—Walden
The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
In the last stage of civilization, Poetry, Religion and Philosophy will be one.—Journal, 17 December 1837
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat–Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions.—Walden
Is not the attitude of expectation somewhat divine?—a sort of home-made divineness?—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 28 May 1850
It is necessary not to be Christian, to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
It is the faith with which we take medicine that cures us.—Journal, 27 June 1852
