Men must speak English who can write Sanskrit; they must speak a modern language who write, perchance, an ancient and universal one. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In ancient days the Pythagoreans were used to change names with each other,--fancying that each would share the virtues they admired in… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that Nature with which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindu, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
That is a pathetic inquiry among travelers and geographers after the site of ancient Troy. It is not near where they think… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the common… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In an ancient and dead language, any recognition of living nature attracts us. These are such sentences as were written while grass… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of… — 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
The hounding of a dog pursuing a fox or other animal in the horizon may have first suggested the notes of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and roundness 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
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
In my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in his pristine glory, with his ruddy face, his flowing beard, and his shaggy body, his… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our own country furnishes antiquities as ancient and durable, and as useful, as any; rocks at least as well covered with lichens,and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Ancient history has an air of antiquity. It should be more modern. It is written as if the specator should be thinking… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however, ancient, can be trusted without… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it… — 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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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 Image
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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 Image
