I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
One revelation has been made to the Indian, another to the white man. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Fishing has been styled 'a contemplative man's recreation,' ... and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There have been some nations who could do nothing but construct tombs, and these are the only traces which they have left.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We discover a new world every time we see the earth again after it has been covered for a season with snow. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindu, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so… — 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
We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How often, when we have been nearest each other bodily, have we really been farthest off! Our tongues were the witty foils… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect...always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When I consider that the noble animals have been exterminated here - the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There have been heroes for whom this world seemed expressly prepared, as if creation had at last succeeded; whose daily life was… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have tasted but little bread in my life. It has been mere grub and provender for the most part. Of bread… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It has been so written, for the most part, that the times it describes are with remarkable propriety called dark ages. They… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been inconceivably… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Christianity only hopes. It has hung its harp on the willows, and cannot sing a song in a strange land. It has… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I confess to having been slightly prejudiced against it in my very early days… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is a very true and expressive phrase, "He looked daggers at me," for the first pattern and prototype of all daggers… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those who have the steering of me that, by the want of pecuniary… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of head… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
A noble person confers no such gift as his whole confidence: none so exalts the giver and the receiver; it produces the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concretic layers of woodenness in the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The forests are held cheap after the white pine has been culled out; and the explorers and hunters pray for rain only… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The world, which the Greeks called Beauty, has been made such by being gradually divested of every ornament which was not fitted… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The chief want, in every state that I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nature has taken more care than the fondest parent for the education and refinement of her children. Consider the silent influencewhich flowers… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I think it will be found that he who speaks with most authority on a given subject is not ignorant of what… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
They who have been bred in the school of politics fail nowand always to face the facts. Their measures are half measures… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Rivers must have been the guides which conducted the footsteps of the first travelers. They are the constant lure, when they flow… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extravagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limit of my… — 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
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
“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
“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
“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
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
A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
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
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
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
The lumberers rarely trouble themselves to put out their fires, such is the dampness of the primitive forest; and this is one cause, no… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
“When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
Wealth is measured by the level of experience in all aspects of life — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
