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
The best poets, after all, exhibit only a tame and civil side of nature. They have not seen the west side of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The condition-of-England question is a practical one. The condition of England demands a hero, not a poet. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is all the poetry in the world in a name. It is a poem which the mass of men hear and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our poets have sung of wine, the product of a foreign plant which commonly they never saw, as if our own plants… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten today, that I might go a- fishing. That's the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man sees only what concerns him… How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The genuine remains of Ossian, or those ancient poems which bear his name, though of less fame and extent, are, in many… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Each reader discovers for himself that, with respect to the simpler features of nature, succeeding poets have done little else than copy… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The night in prison was novel and interesting enough… I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets,--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included,--breathes no quite… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defense, but the toughest son… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I walk out into a nature such as the old prophets and poets Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may name… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed anddrawn… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When we come down into the distant village, visible from the mountain-top, the nobler inhabitants with whom we peopled it have departed,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been inconceivably… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forestrots below,such a town is fitted to raise not only corn… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I lately met with an old volume from a London bookshop, containing the Greek Minor Poets, and it was a pleasure to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What a contrast between the stern and desolate poetry of Ossian, and that of Chaucer, and even of Shakespeare and Milton, much… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet's, commonly, is not a logger's path, but a woodman's. The logger and pioneer have preceded him, like John the Baptist;… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper,... in the poet's… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In Homer and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral poets.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When I stand in a library where is all the recorded wit of the world, but none of the recording, a mere… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly… You are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; to read only the serenely… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nature doth thus kindly heal every wound. By the mediation of a thousand little mosses and fungi, the most unsightly objects become… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have made a very rude translation of the Seven against Thebes, and Pindar too I have looked at, and wish he… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You may rely on it that you have the best of me in my books, and that I am not worth seeing… — 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
