Lieber als Liebe, als Geld, als Ruhm gebt mir Wahrheit. Ich saß an einem Tische, wo feine Weine und Speisen im Überfluss vorhanden waren, wo man mich sorgsam bediente, wo es aber keine Aufrichtigkeit und Wahrheit gab. Hungrig verließ ich ihren ungastlichen Tisch. Die Gastfreundschaft war so kalt wie das Gefrorene.
Henry David ThoreauIt is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it.
Henry David ThoreauI have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes a-foot. I say to my friend, Suppose we try who will get there first. The distance is thirty miles, the fare ninety cents. That is almost a day’s wage. I remember when wages were sixty cents a-day for labourers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot, and get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week together. You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, and arrive there some time to-morrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part of the day.
Henry David ThoreauMots clés economy
This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived. Perchance he is not confounded by many knowledges, and has not sought out many inventions, but how to take many fishes before the sun sets, with slender birchen pole and flaxen line, that is invention enough for him.
Henry David ThoreauOn Ponkawtasset, since, we took our way,
Down this still stream we took our meadowy way,
A poet wise has settled, whose fine ray
Doth faintly shine on Concord's twilight day.
Like those first stars, whose silver beams on high,
Shining more brightly as the day goes by,
Most travellers cannot at first descry,
But eyes that wont to range the evening sky,
And know celestial lights, do plainly see,
And gladly hail them, numbering two or three;
For lore that's deep must deeply studied be,
As from deep wells men read star-poetry.
These stars are never pal'd, though out of sight,
But like the sun they shine forever bright;
Aye, they are suns, though earth must in its flight
Put out its eyes that it may see their light.
Who would neglect the least celestial sound,
Or faintest light that falls on earthly ground,
If he could know it one day would be found
That star in Cygnus whither we are bound,
And pale our sun with heavenly radiance round?
The white man comes, pale as the dawn, with a load of thought, with a slumbering intelligence as a fire raked up, knowing well what he knows, not guessing but calculating; strong in community, yielding obedience to authority; of experienced race; of wonderful, wonderful common sense; dull but capable, slow but persevering, severe but just, of little humor but genuine; a laboring man, despising game and sport; building a house that endures, a framed house. He buys the Indian's moccasins and baskets, then buys his hunting-grounds, and at length forgets where he is buried and plows up his bones.
Henry David ThoreauThere is in my nature, methinks, a singular yearning toward all wildness.
Henry David ThoreauGardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw. There may be an excess of cultivation as well as of anything else, until civilization becomes pathetic. A highly cultivated man, -all whose bones can be bent! whose heaven-born virtues are but good manners!
Henry David ThoreauWe talk of civilizing the Indian, but that is not the name for his improvement. By the wary independence and aloofness of his dim forest life he preserves his intercourse with his native gods, and is admitted from time to time to a rare and peculiar society with Nature. He has glances of starry recognition to which our saloons are strangers. The steady illumination of his genius, dim only because distant, is like the faint but satisfying light of the stars compared with the dazzling but ineffectual and short-lived blaze of candles.
Henry David ThoreauThere are other, savager, and more primeval aspects of Nature than our poets have sung. It is only white man's poetry. Homer and Ossian even can never revive in London or Boston. And yet behold how these cities are refreshed by the mere tradition, or the imperfectly transmitted fragance and flavor of these wild fruits. If we could listen but for an instant to the chaunt of the Indian muse, we should understand why he will not exchange his savageness for civilization. Nations are not whimsical. Steel and blankets are strong temptations; but the Indian does well to continue Indian.
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