There may be an excess of cultivation as well as of anything else, until civilization becomes pathetic. A highly cultivated man,--all whose… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is considerable danger that a man will be crazy between dinner and supper; but it will not directly answer any good… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The theories and speculations of men concern us more than their puny accomplishment. It is with a certain coldness and languor that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If men were to be destroyed and the books they have written were to be transmitted to a new race of creatures,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is not one kind of food for all men. You must and you will feed those faculties which you exercise. The… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The divinity in man is the true vestal fire of the temple which is never permitted to go out, but burns as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In our daily intercourse with men, our nobler faculties are dormant and suffered to rust. None will pay us the compliment to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is worth the while to detect new faculties in man,--he is so much the more divine; and anything that fairly excites… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men's necessities, while elsewhereshe was equally… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The frontiers are not east or west, north or south; but wherever a man fronts a fact, though that fact be a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We have built for this world a family mansion, and the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, is but a sort of locomotiveness; they move a side at a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their conscience also, and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In a thousand apparently humble ways men busy themselves to make some right take the place of some wrong,--if it is only… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The same soil is good for men and for trees. A man's health requires as many acres of meadow to his prospect… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To the virtuous man, the universe is the only sanctum sanctorum, and the penetralia of the temple are the broad noon of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There are two classes of men called poets. The one cultivates life, the other art,... one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What is chastity? How shall a man know if he is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It requires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the world demands or can… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The mass of men are very easily imposed on. They have their runways in which they always travel, and are sure to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We could not help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man. His words and actions presume alwaysa… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The mason asks but a narrow shelf to spring his brick from; man requires only an infinitely narrower one to spring his… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate the world…There is naked Nature, inhumanly… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Such were garrulous and noisy eras, which no longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent and melodious era is ever… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It must be confessed that horses at present work too exclusively for men, rarely men for horses; and the brute degenerates in… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
And pray what more can a reasonable man desire, in peaceful times, in ordinary noons, than a sufficient number of ears of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men talk of freedom! How many are free to think? Free from fear, from perturbation, from prejudice? Nine hundred and ninety-nine in… — 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
