The most difficult thing to understand during conversation is silence. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Music never stops; it is only the listening that is intermittent. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It requires nothing less than a chivalric feeling to sustain a conversation with a lady. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We communicate like the burrows of foxes, in silence and darkness, under ground. We are undermined by faith and love. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There are some things which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept silent about. To the highest communications we… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The necessity of labor and conversation with many men and things to the scholar is rarely well remembered. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
All men are really most attracted by the beauty of plain speech, and they even write in a florid style in imitation… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Letter-writing too often degenerates into a communicating of facts, and not of truths; of other men's deeds and not our thoughts.What are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is impossible to say all that we think, even to our truest Friend. We may bid him farewell forever sooner than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Love is the profoundest of secrets. Divulged, even to the beloved, it is no longer Love. As if it were merely I… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Knowledge is to be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Any man will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is not in vain that man speaks to man. This is the value of literature. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In the summer we lay up a stock of experiences for the winter, as the squirrel of nuts?something for conversation in winter… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“So hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What means the fact--which is so common, so universal--that some soul that has lost all hope for itself can inspire in another… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
His style is eminently colloquial, and no wonder it is strange to meet with in a book. It is not literary or… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share
“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 Copy Share
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
“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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share
A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
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 Copy Share
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
The lumberers rarely trouble themselves to put out their fires, such is the dampness of the primitive forest; and this is one cause, no… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
“When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
Wealth is measured by the level of experience in all aspects of life — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
