Society Celebrates the Wrong Things | Quote of the Day by Henry David Thoreau, May 12

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hi everyone, welcome back to my next quote of the day. Today we're going to have a a quote from the very famous Henry David Thoreau. If you are a nomad or if you are a naturalist of any way or conservationist, uh environmentalist, you know the Henry David the name Henry David Thoreau. He He had a huge impact on our relationship with nature. He said this, "If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. Oh, look at that loafer. He's not doing nothing.

[00:00:32]But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen." Henry David Thoreau.

[00:00:48]And I love this juxtaposition. He says, "If I go out to the woods just because I love nature, I love being connected to nature, I love being out there with it, but that's how you spend half your day, then you're a loafer. You're a shirker.

[00:01:05]You're a leech on society. Believe me, I've been called all those things because I spend most of my time in nature.

[00:01:11]Uh but if you go out there and you spend time in nature with the single sole intent of tearing down everything you see, of digging up the earth, of cutting down all the trees, uh if of damaging the earth in virtually every way you can, and today hopefully you're at least minimizing the damage, but you know there's going to be damage. If you cut down all the trees, that's damage. And so if you go out there, you are in our society, we uh honor that man. We We look at that person and say, "He's a great person.

[00:01:45]He's a great citizen. He's out raping and pillaging the earth. What a great guy. Let's honor him. And let's make him incredibly rich. Why don't we do that?"

[00:01:56]This huge rich, giant of a man that we will honor and we will almost worship him. And so uh that's messed up.

[00:02:07]I don't I don't know any other way to say it. That is a really messed up attitude towards each other and towards this life.

[00:02:15]We should be looking towards those people who are doing good to the earth to the plants and animals of the earth and to other people.

[00:02:25]Now, if a lot of these guys for until the government made them stop once they cut everything down and they built a plant and they were putting out toxic products, they just dumped it out in the water.

[00:02:38]Uh if there was a river, a stream, a lake, they just dumped this toxic stuff out there. This was routine business until the Environmental Protection Agency came out and then they would go test the water and then they would go find them and find them and find them.

[00:02:52]Pass a law and if they if they just would not stop, those guys might end up in jail. I hope they do.

[00:02:58]E You got to honor and love the earth is the bottom line.

[00:03:03]And if all you think about is me, how much money I can make off of the earth giving no thought to the harm I'm doing to others, all that crap he dumped into the land or in the water went down into the water table and then other people the people around him drink it and they got cancer and they died and there's some horror stories of corporations gave no thought and did everything they could to hide it so they could keep doing it.

[00:03:34]And even after they got caught, they would keep doing it. They just find a way to hide it even better.

[00:03:39]So um don't be that person. Don't honor that person.

[00:03:46]Uh these are dishonorable people.

[00:03:48]They're harming everyone else just for themselves.

[00:03:52]We need to people be people who go into nature and love it and protect it and say I want to become a better human being mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically by loving for nature, being in it and caring for it.

[00:04:11]And honor the people that are doing that.

[00:04:14]And today of course there's a large segment of the country that hates the EPA because they love the planet and want to save it. They hate that and they want to be able to just destroy it.

[00:04:24]There are politicians that are today are running on the platform of do as much harm to the planet as I can. Vote for me and I'll do all that harm. And man we got to change that. That's I think Thoreau was right.

[00:04:41]Let's honor the man who loves the earth and dishonor the man that hates it.

[00:04:46]Well that's the decision you have to make and I know I've kind of entered into politics there and I'm going to make some of you pretty mad. But I hope you can look beyond that and see that the earth is worth preserving. That's what Thoreau was saying. Love the earth, protect it, take care of it and I hope we will all give some thought to that.

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