None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote criticizes the lack of initiative and belief in people, suggesting they live mundane lives dictated by commercial activities.
Henry David Thoreau's quote reflects on how many individuals lead unfulfilled lives, constrained by their lack of ambition and belief in greater possibilities. It suggests that people often become consumed by material pursuits—buying, selling, and spending—turning them into 'servants' of society rather than taking charge of their destinies through enterprise and faith in themselves.
Themes
EnterpriseFaithAmbitionLifeFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech to inspire young professionals to pursue their dreams.
More from Henry David Thoreau
All quotes →An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.
Henry David ThoreauRead
As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.
Henry David ThoreauRead
That grand old poem called Winter
Henry David ThoreauRead
Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our feet to get it! Is the scholastic air any advantage?
Henry David ThoreauRead
Similar quotes
Although our prospect is peace, our policy and purpose are to provide for defense by all those means to which our resources are competent.
Thomas JeffersonRead
People are more complicated than the masks they wear in society.
Robert GreeneRead
In proportion as a church is holy, in that proportion will its testimony for Christ be powerful.
Charles SpurgeonRead
It is the task of youth not to reshape the church, but rather to listen to the word of God.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
With the eventual acceptance of Darwin's theory we reach a modern understanding of nature, one which has since then changed in detail rather than in fundamentals. Only those who prefer religious faith to beliefs based on reasoning and evidence can still maintain that the human species is the special darling of the entire universe, or that other animals were created to provide us with food, or that we have divine authority over them, and divine permission to kill them.
Peter SingerRead