A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Exaggerated history is poetry, and truth referred to a new standard. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Indeed, the Englishman's history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I found that they knew but little of the history of their race, and could be entertained by stories about their ancestors… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We perceive that the schemers return again and again to common sense and labor. Such is the evidence of history. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There are secret articles in our treaties with the gods, of more importance than all the rest, which the historian can never… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
All the events which make the annals of the nations are but the shadows of our private experiences. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The Xanthus or Scamander is not a mere dry channel and bed of a mountain torrent, but fed by the ever-flowing springs… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in a single, solitary, even humble individual. For it… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There has always been the same amount of light in the world. The new and missing stars, the comets and eclipses, do… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is always some accident in the best things, whether thoughts or expressions or deeds. The memorable thought, the happy expression, the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“There is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race, when the hunters are the "best men," as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men seem anxious to accomplish an orderly retreat through the centuries, earnestly rebuilding the works behind them, as they are battered down… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“We go eastward to realize history, and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No doubt Carlyle has a propensity to exaggerate the heroic in history, that is, he creates you an ideal hero rather than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The night in prison was novel and interesting enough… I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
But it is fit that the Past should be dark; though the darkness is not so much a quality of the past… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Critical acumen is exerted in vain to uncover the past; the past cannot be presented; we cannot know what we are not.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If we will admit time into our thoughts at all, the mythologies, those vestiges of ancient poems, wrecks of poems, so to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Those who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts.” — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Such were garrulous and noisy eras, which no longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent and melodious era is ever… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted,but… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as the work of today is present, so some flitting perspectives and demi-experiences of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of… — 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
