From exertion come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and sensuality. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.” — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The savage lives simply through ignorance and idleness or laziness, but the philosopher lives simply through wisdom. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I should consider it a greater success to interest one wise and earnest soul, than a million unwise and frivolous. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What wisdom, what warning can prevail against gladness? There is no law so strong that a little gladness may not transgress. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The wise are not so much wiser than others as respecters of their own wisdom. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“A wise man has doubts even in his best moments. Real truth is always accompanied by hesitations. If I could not hesitate,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Unless we do more than simply learn the trade of our time, we are but apprentices, and not yet masters of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is no doubt that the loftiest written wisdom is either rhymed or in some way musically measured,--is, in form as well… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“They who suspect a Mephistophiles, or sneering, satirical devil, under all, have not learned the secret of true humor, which sympathizes with… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is the characteristic of great poems that they will yield of their sense in due proportion to the hasty and the… — 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
No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that… — 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
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
Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again And what… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all their activity… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What the essential difference between man and woman is, that they should be thus attracted to one another, no one has satisfactorily… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What is commonly honored with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct. Men do not, after all, love… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man: wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
All this worldly wisdom was once the unnameable heresy of some wise man. — 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
