There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography. — 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
“Books which are books are all that you want, and there are but half a dozen in any thousand.” — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is not in vain that man speaks to man. This is the value of literature. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A sentence should be read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There are as many strata at different levels of life as there are leaves in a book. When on the higher levels… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“The forcible writer stands bodily behind his words with his experiences. He does not make books out of books, but he has… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The books for young people say a great deal about the selection of Friends; it is because they really have nothing to… — 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
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita in comparison with which our… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Everything that is printed and bound in a book contains some echo at least of the best that is in literature. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Indeed, the best books have a use, like sticks and stones, which is above or beside their design, not anticipated in the… — 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
To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task… — 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
“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
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 best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There… — 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
“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
But I can assure my readers that Walden has a reasonably tight bottom at a not unreasonable, though at an unusual, depth.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or… — 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
“In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is… — 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
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. — 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
The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. — 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
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
