Quote #5

Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough, What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town, If juster battles are enacted now Between the ants upon this hummock's crown?

More from Henry David Thoreau

  1. My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read, 'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large Down in the meadow, where is richer feed, And wi…
  2. Talk of mysteries! - Think of our life in nature, - daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, - rocks, trees, wind on our cheek…
  3. Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself, That in my action I may soar as high As I can now discern w…
  4. The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.
  5. But now I see I was not plucked for naught, And after in life's vase Of glass set while I might survive, But by a kind hand brought Alive T…
  6. The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls - the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not dep…
  7. I am a parcel of vain strivings tied By a chance bond together, Dangling this way and that, their links Were made so loose and wide, Methin…
  8. It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

All Henry David Thoreau quotes