Why should we leave it to Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our reading? — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
He who cannot read is worse than deaf and blind, is yet but half alive, is still-born. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Books that are books are all that you want, and there are but a half dozen in any thousand. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I never read a novel, they have so little real life and thought in them. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra firma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of navigation by those… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Certainly, we do not need to be soothed and entertained always like children. He who resorts to the easy novel, because he… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
After all, I believe it is the style of thought entirely, and the style of expression, which makes the difference in books. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is one of the signs of the times. We confess that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is always room and occasion enough for a true book on any subject; as there is room for more light the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have not read far in the statutes of this Commonwealth. It is not profitable reading. They do not always say what… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,--for if men… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
After reading Howitt's account of the Australian gold-diggings one evening,... I asked myself why I might not be washing some golddaily, though… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Since you are my readers, and I have not been much of a traveler, I will not talk about people a thousand… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions… — 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
“A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The woodchopper reads the wisdom of the ages recorded on the paper that holds his dinner, then lights his pipe with it.… — 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 truly good book attracts very little favor to itself. It is so true that it teaches me better than to read… — 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
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
The whole of the day should not be daytime; there should be one hour, if not more, which the day did not… — 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 a relief to read some true book, wherein all are equally dead,--equally alive. I think the best parts of Shakespeare… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We should read history as little critically as we consider the landscape, and be more interested by the atmospheric tints and various… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“A truly good book…teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down and commence living on its hint.… — 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
