Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I come from pioneer stock, developers of the West, people who went out into the wilderness and set up home with nothing but a pair of oxen.

But the West of the old times, with its strong characters, its stern battles and its tremendous stretches of loneliness, can never be blotted from my mind.

Westward, ever westward.

Today, I honor the memory of those brave settlers of Oregon …. Some instinct drew them here, a fate a pulling, a desire for deep and lasting change in their lives. They embraced that change. They sought it out. Theirs was a quest for new horizons, for new beginnings. For a new homeland. They rode. They walked. They starved. They foraged. And they died. But they kept their eyes westward. They gave us Oregon.

If a western is a good western, it gives you a sense of that world and some of the qualities those men had - their comradeship, loyalty, and physical courage.

I am not belittling the brave pioneer men but the sunbonnet as well as the sombrero has helped to settle this glorious land of ours.

We call them leaders because they go first, because they take the risk before anybody else does, because they will choose to sacrifice so their people will be safe and protected.

If you can talk the talk but cant walk the walk youll look like a fool. That's the risk but with great risk comes great reward.

Can you imagine a life with no fear? What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats?

Courage is the virtue that President Kennedy most admired. He sought out those people who had demonstrated in some way, whether it was on a battlefield or a baseball diamond, in a speech or fighting for a cause, that they had courage that they would stand up, that they could be counted on.

Be brave enough to create.

We are pioneers and the history of pioneers is not that good.

Fear could never make virtue.

I think bravery is when you're willing to really put yourself on the line and maybe lose out, financially - and be able to say exactly what motivates you and what inspires you and what you find completely unacceptable in humanity and in culture.

Stagecoach is really my first Western, actually.

A real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.

A frontier is never a place; it is a time and a way of life.

Keep unscathed the good name; keep out of peril the honor without which even your battered old soldier who is hobbling into his grave on half-pay and a wooden leg would not change with Achilles.

If truth is a value it is because it is true and not because it is brave to speak it.

Who does Bill Clinton think got off the boat and stepped on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers?

Wherever valor true is found, true modesty will there abound.

Life may be given in many ways, and loyalty to truth be sealed as bravely in the closet as the field.

Not surprisingly, as the pioneer theme is presented, each goes back in memory to his or her own family line. There are usually examples to identify and which fit the definition of a pioneer: "one who goes before, showing others the way to follow." Some, if not all, made great sacrifices to leave behind comfort and ease and respond to that clarion call of their newly found faith.

Every brave man is a man of his word; to such base vices he cannot stoop, and shuns more than death the shame of lying.