“Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid.” — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No people ever lived by cursing their fathers, however great a curse their fathers might have been to them. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There they lived on, those New England people, farmer lives, father and grandfather and great-grandfather, on and on without noise, keeping up… — 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
Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that people the air… — 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
