It is best to lay our plans widely in youth, for then land is cheap, and it is but too easy to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Your scheme must be the framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion. — 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
The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper,... in the poet's… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The front aspect of great thoughts can only be enjoyed by those who stand on the side whence they arrive. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The principal, the only, thing a man makes, is his condition of fate. Though commonly he does not know it, nor put… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have not yet learned to live, that I can see, and I fear that I shall not very soon. I find,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is one of the signs of the times. We confess that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We find it difficult to choose our direction because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The past is only so heroic as we see it. It is the canvas on which our idea of heroism is painted,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads,--and then we can hardly… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I think it would be worth the while to introduce a school of children to such [an oak grove], that they may… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A journal is a repository for all those fragmentary ideas and odd scraps of information that might otherwise be lost and which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men commonly couple with their idea of marriage a slight degree at least of sensuality; but every lover, the world over, believesin… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you take this life to be simply what old religious folks pretend (I mean the effete, gone to seed in a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men talk glibly enough about moonshine, as if they knew its qualities very well, and despised them; as owls might talk of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How insupportable would be the days, if the night with its dews and darkness did not come to restore the drooping world.… — 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