A book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra firma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of navigation by those… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Before the land rose out of the ocean, and became dry land, chaos reigned; and between high and low water mark, where… — 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
When the State wishes to endow an academy or university, it grants it a tract of forest land: one saw represents an… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The merely political aspect of the land is never very cheering; men are degraded when considered as the members of a political… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Two thousand summers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal tint,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
All that is told of the sea has a fabulous sound to an inhabitant of the land and all its products have… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In 1694 a law was passed "that every settler who deserted a town for fear of the Indians should forfeit all his… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Where is the "unexplored land" but in our own untried enterprises? To an adventurous spirit any place--London, New York, Worcester, or his… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear and melancholy, but good for… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
For my part, I would rather look toward Rutland than Jerusalem. Rutland,--modern town,--land of ruts,--trivial and worn,--not toosacred,--with no holy sepulchre, but… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George the Fourth and continue… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The only free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee. They have tunneled under the whole breadth… — 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
Have we even so much as discovered and settled the shores? Let a man travel on foot along the coastand tell me… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
So far as inland discovery was concerned, the adventurous spirit of the English was that of sailors who land but for a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The only government that I recognize--and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army--is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Ktaadnis an Indian word signifying highest land,... very few, even among backwoodsmen and hunters, have ever climbed it, andit will be a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What do the botanists know? Our lives should go between the lichen and the bark. The eye may see for the hand,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our last deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon… — 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
The mode of clearing and planting is to fell the trees, and burn once what will burn, then cut them up into… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world. It is even a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
This fair homestead has fallen to us, and how little have we done to improve it, how little have we cleared and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Christianity only hopes. It has hung its harp on the willows, and cannot sing a song in a strange land. It has… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What is most striking in the Maine wilderness is the continuousness of the forest, with fewer open intervals or glades than you… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I am amused to see from my window here how busily a man has divided and staked off his domain. God must… — 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
