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
Show me a man who feels bitterly toward John Brown, and let me hear what noble verse he can repeat. He'll be… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Homer and Shakespeare and Milton and Marvell and Wordsworth are but the rustling of leaves and crackling of twigs in the forest,… — 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
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
Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Translate a book a dozen times from one language to another, and what becomes of its style? Most books would be worn… — 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
“That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned,… — 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
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
Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the… — 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
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
We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very little of it has yet been sung. The ancients had a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most… — 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
We admire Chaucer for his sturdy English wit… But though it is full of good sense and humanity, it is not transcendent… — 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
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
If we will admit time into our thoughts at all, the mythologies, those vestiges of ancient poems, wrecks of poems, so to… — 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
“If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. When… — 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
“The moose will perhaps one day become extinct; but how naturally then, when it exists only as a fossil relic, and unseen… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable… — 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
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
