Book Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

At least let us have healthy books.

— Henry David Thoreau

It is not all books that are as dull as their readers.

— Henry David Thoreau

The Library is a wilderness of books.

— Henry David Thoreau

A truly good book is something as wildly natural and primitive, mysterious and marvelous, ambrosial and fertile as a fungus or a…

— Henry David Thoreau

Books that are books are all that you want, and there are but a half dozen in any thousand.

— Henry David Thoreau

The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit.

— Henry David Thoreau

Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

— Henry David Thoreau

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent.

— Henry David Thoreau

Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

— Henry David Thoreau

All that are printed and bound are not books; they do not necessarily belong to letters, but are oftener to be ranked…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you'll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books. And…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

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

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

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the bigotry with which…

— Henry David Thoreau

Paper is cheap, and authors need not now erase one book before they write another. Instead of cultivating the earth for wheat…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

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

It would be worthy of the age to print together the collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese,…

— Henry David Thoreau

The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I confess to having been slightly prejudiced against it in my very early days…

— Henry David Thoreau

The newspaper is a Bible which we read every morning and every afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a…

— Henry David Thoreau

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will tax…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied…

— Henry David Thoreau

“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

Everything that is printed and bound in a book contains some echo at least of the best that is in literature.

— Henry David Thoreau

Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him forever.

— Henry David Thoreau

The book has never been written which is to be accepted without any allowance.

— Henry David Thoreau

I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents.

— Henry David Thoreau

We do not learn much from learned books, but from true, sincere, human books, from frank and honest biographies.

— Henry David Thoreau

Why should we leave it to Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our reading?

— Henry David Thoreau

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

— Henry David Thoreau

A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.

— Henry David Thoreau

He who cannot read is worse than deaf and blind, is yet but half alive, is still-born.

— Henry David Thoreau

A journal, is a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy, what you are grateful for.

— Henry David Thoreau