Henry David Thoreau Quotes:
Ocupation: Author
Life: July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862
Birthday: July 12
Death: May 6
The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! little is to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and the philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones.
source: Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.170, Simon and Schuster
topic: Nature, Father, Rome, Marrow, Civilized Nations
