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
A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are often struck by the force and precision of style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, easily attain when required… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are busy about their beans. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to their minds, but that a little money or… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The truth is, there is money buried everywhere, and you have only to go to work to find it. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Though the hen should sit all day, she could lay only one egg, and, besides, would not have picked up materials for… — 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
Unless the human race perspire more than I do, there is no occasion to live by the sweat of their brow. If… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little money, they may be inclined… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is so rare to meet with a man outdoors who cherishes a worthy thought in his mind, which is independent of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Poetry is the only life got, the only work done, the only pure product and free labor of man, performed only when… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Are you in want of amusement nowadays? Then play a little at the game of getting a living. There was never anything… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Those services which the community will most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what… — 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
