Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. We are scarcely less afflicted when we remember some unworthiness in our conduct in a dream, than if it had been actual, and the intensity of our grief, which is our atonement, measures inversely the degree by which this is separated from an actual unworthiness. For in dreams we but act a part which must have been learned and rehearsed in our waking hours, and no doubt could discover some waking consent thereto. If this meanness has not its foundation in us, why are we grieved at it?
Henry David ThoreauTag: dreams
Friendship is first, Friendship last. But it is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we begin to keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins. I would that I were worthy to be any man's Friend.
Henry David ThoreauTag: friendship
Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies, -neighbors are kind enough for that, -but to do the like office to our spirits. For this few are rich enough, however well disposed they may be.
Henry David ThoreauTag: friendship
In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake. But an unwavering and commanding virtue would compel even its most fantastic and faintest dreams to respect its ever wakeful authority; as we are accustomed to say carelessly, we should never have dreamed of such a thing. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
Henry David ThoreauTag: dreams
The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.
Henry David ThoreauTag: government
A common and natural result of an undue respect of law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.
Henry David ThoreauLaw never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
Henry David ThoreauVisit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts, -a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, though it may be, -
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart were hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot,
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
Tag: humanity justice law hero soldier
There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing....
Henry David ThoreauTag: justice war action citizenship slavery beliefs
Oameni cu o singură idee, ca o găină cu un singur pui, și acela de rata;oameni cu o mie de idei, ca acele găini care sunt forțate să ia în grijă o sută de pui. toți în urmărirea unui singur gândac, câteva zeci dintre ei rătăciți în roua dimineții - și devenind ciufuliți și soioși în consecință; oameni cu idei în loc de picioare, un fel de miriapozi intelectuali care vă fac să vă târâți peste tot.
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