The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What recommends commerce to me is its enterprise and bravery. It does not clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own cast- off griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and "spare shirt," "leathern breeches" and "gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nothing can rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar sadness. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life! Indeed, the unchallenged bravery which these studies imply, is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid.” — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If a man were to place himself in an attitude to bear manfully the greatest evil that can be inflicted on him,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We have need to be as sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish, or Church, or Lovewell. We are to follow on another… — 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
