No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the devil's angels. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I learned to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of nature, rather than a member of society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
So long as a man is faithful to himself, everything is in his favor, government, society, the very sun, moon, and stars. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If a man were to place himself in an attitude to bear manfully the greatest evil that can be inflicted on him,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is a momentous fact that a man may be good, or he may be bad; his life may be true, or… — 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
Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere makeshifts, and a shirking of the real business… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What a battle a man must fight everywhere to maintain his standing army of thoughts, and march with them in orderly array… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are often struck by the force and precision of style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, easily attain when required… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased these days… Such… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,--that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What avail all your scholarly accomplishments and learning, compared with wisdom and manhood? To omit his other behavior, see whata work this… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not remember anything which Confucius has said directly respecting man's "origin, purpose, and destiny." He was more practical than that.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is best to lay our plans widely in youth, for then land is cheap, and it is but too easy to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Compared with this simple, fibrous life, our civilized history appears the chronicle of debility, of fashion, and the arts of luxury. But… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We sometimes meet uncivil men, children of Amazons, who dwell by mountain paths, and are said to be inhospitable to strangers; whose… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It would be worthy of the age to print together the collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions,… — 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
