Communication Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

The most difficult thing to understand during conversation is silence.

— Henry David Thoreau

Music never stops; it is only the listening that is intermittent.

— Henry David Thoreau

The gods cannot misunderstand, man cannot explain.

— Henry David Thoreau

Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints.

— Henry David Thoreau

Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

— Henry David Thoreau

When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.

— Henry David Thoreau

We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have…

— Henry David Thoreau

The necessity of labor and conversation with many men and things to the scholar is rarely well remembered.

— Henry David Thoreau

It is not in vain that man speaks to man. This is the value of literature.

— Henry David Thoreau

I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side.

— Henry David Thoreau

In the summer we lay up a stock of experiences for the winter, as the squirrel of nuts?something for conversation in winter…

— Henry David Thoreau

For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it.

— Henry David Thoreau

We communicate like the burrows of foxes, in silence and darkness, under ground. We are undermined by faith and love.

— Henry David Thoreau

What means the fact--which is so common, so universal--that some soul that has lost all hope for itself can inspire in another…

— Henry David Thoreau

“So hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward…

— Henry David Thoreau

Knowledge is to be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my…

— Henry David Thoreau

Letter-writing too often degenerates into a communicating of facts, and not of truths; of other men's deeds and not our thoughts.What are…

— Henry David Thoreau

It is impossible to say all that we think, even to our truest Friend. We may bid him farewell forever sooner than…

— Henry David Thoreau

All men are really most attracted by the beauty of plain speech, and they even write in a florid style in imitation…

— Henry David Thoreau

One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when…

— Henry David Thoreau

Any man will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the…

— Henry David Thoreau

If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the…

— Henry David Thoreau

Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him…

— Henry David Thoreau

A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides…

— Henry David Thoreau

As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to…

— Henry David Thoreau

It requires nothing less than a chivalric feeling to sustain a conversation with a lady.

— Henry David Thoreau

Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man.

— Henry David Thoreau

There are some things which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept silent about. To the highest communications we…

— Henry David Thoreau

Love is the profoundest of secrets. Divulged, even to the beloved, it is no longer Love. As if it were merely I…

— Henry David Thoreau

What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only…

— Henry David Thoreau

A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and…

— Henry David Thoreau

As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they…

— Henry David Thoreau