Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Then at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.” — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name,--if ten honest men only,--ay,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Frequently also some fair-weather finery ripped off a vessel by a storm near the coast was nailed up against an outhouse. I… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are apt to imagine that this hubbub of Philosophy, Literature, and Religion, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates… — 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
If you would feel the full force of a tempest, take up your residence on the top of Mount Washington, or at… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I would remind my countrymen, that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour. No… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If men were to be destroyed and the books they have written were to be transmitted to a new race of creatures,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as where I live. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I seem to have dodged all my days with one or two persons, and lived upon expectation,--as if the bud would surely… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How full of the creative genius is the air in which these [snowflakes] are generated! I should hardly admire them more if… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I was never molested by any person but those who represented the State. I had no lock nor bolt but for the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If I deny the authority of the State when it presents my tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In war, in some sense, lies the very genius of law. It is law creative and active; it is the first principle… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Stuff a cold and starve a cold are but two ways. They are the two practices, both always in full blast. Yet… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you are chosen town clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer; but you may go to the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates… — 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
