It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The culture of the hop ... so analagous to the culture and uses of the grape, may afford a theme for future poets. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Alas! the culture of an Irishman is an enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a Freedom and Culture merely civil,… — 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 surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed anddrawn… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Compared with this simple, fibrous life, our civilized history appears the chronicle of debility, of fashion, and the arts of luxury. But… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
But there are spirits of a yet more liberal culture, to whom no simplicity is barren. There are not only stately pines,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we should still be growing… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When it was proposed to me to go abroad, rub oft some rust, and better my condition in a worldly sense, I… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downwards through the mud and slush of opinion and tradition, and pride… — 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
