History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Of what use were it, pray, to get a little wood to burn, to warm your body this cold weather, if there… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If we see nature as pausing, immediately all mortifies and decays; but seen as progressing, she is beautiful. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
All the past is here, present to be tried; let it approve itself if it can. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If however the law is so promulgated that it of necessity makes you an agent of injustices against another, then I say… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Most men would feel shame if caught preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of animal or vegetable food,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You ask if there is no doctrine of sorrow in my philosophy. Of acute sorrow I suppose that I know comparatively little.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such questions as, if I think that I can live on… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Why should Canada, wild and unsettled as it is, impress us as an older country than the States, unless because her institutions… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I was rich,… — 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
We boast of our system of education, but why stop at schoolmasters and schoolhouses? We are all schoolmasters, and our schoolhouse is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The Oriental philosophy approaches easily loftier themes than the modern aspires to; and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about them. It… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
This is a common experience in my traveling. I plod along, thinking what a miserable world this is and what miserable fellows… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I respect not his labors, his farm where everything has its price, who would carry the landscape, who would carry his God,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As for fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought… — 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
