A thrumming of piano-strings beyond the gardens and through the elms. At length the melody steals into my being. I know not… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Do what you know you ought to do. Why should we ever go abroad, even across the way, to ask a neighbor's… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is considerable danger that a man will be crazy between dinner and supper; but it will not directly answer any good… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The botanist should make interest with the bees if he would know when the flowers open and when they close. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not… — 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
It gets laughed at because it is a small town, I know, but nevertheless it is a place where great men may… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are ashamed of our fear; for we know that a righteous man would not suspect danger nor incur any. Wherever a… — 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
“A man’s ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful, while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless beside being… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and… — 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
Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I should say that the useful results of science had accumulated, but that there had been no accumulation of knowledge, strictly speaking,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As for conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that. Let not your right hand… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that Nature with which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not know at first what it is that harms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to be… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Before the end of December, generally, they experience their first thawing. Those which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and quite unpalatable… — 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
