Clay Quote by Henry David Thoreau

“Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.” quote by Henry David Thoreau — Download Open image

“Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.”

Henry David Thoreau

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 2.1 out of 5 (3 ratings)

Clay Graves Greater Love Maggots May No sympathy Patriotic Patriotism Sacrifice Self Self respect Soil Spirit Stills Sympathy

More by Henry David Thoreau

If ever I did a man any goodof course it was something exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I am…

Henry David Thoreau

Image

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

Henry David Thoreau

Image

“Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wings, — The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that…

Henry David Thoreau

Image

I am not afraid of praise, for I have practiced it on myself.

Henry David Thoreau

Image

“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should…

Henry David Thoreau

“This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of…

Henry David Thoreau

Image

As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may…

Henry David Thoreau

Image

A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed.

Henry David Thoreau

Image

In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the…

Henry David Thoreau

Image

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

Henry David Thoreau

Image

The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel.

Henry David Thoreau

Image

Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.

Henry David Thoreau

Image

Explore all 3,376 Henry David Thoreau quotes

More Clay quotes

Black music has always known, and not been afraid to acknowledge just how high the stakes of Black thought are. To summarize the final soliloquy of Clay, the protagonist in LeRoi Jones’ (aka Amiri Baraka’s) play Dutchman. You’d better be glad Charlie Parker could play him some horn and Bessie Smith could sing, because if they didn’t make music they…

Frank B. Wilderson III

We are all potentially such sick men. The sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison-inmates. And whenever we feel this, such a sense of the vanity of our voluntary career comes over us, that all our morality appears but as a plaster hiding a sore it can never cure, and all our well-doing as…

William James