A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When I think of the gold-diggers and the Mormons, the slaves and the slave-holders and the flibustiers, I naturally dream of a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In our daily intercourse with men, our nobler faculties are dormant and suffered to rust. None will pay us the compliment to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
After reading Howitt's account of the Australian gold-diggings one evening,... I asked myself why I might not be washing some golddaily, though… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The gold-digger is the enemy of the honest laborer, whatever checks and compensations there may be. It is not enough to tell… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is rare that we use our thinking faculty as resolutely as an irishman his spade. To please our friends and relatives… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be found in that direction but that is to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Perfect alchemists I keep who can transmute substances without end, and thus the corner of my garden is an inexhaustible treasure-chest. Here… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The humblest observer who goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of a lottery; the gold… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The majority of the men of the North, and of the South and East and West, are not men of principle. If… — 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
