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
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
For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in comparison with which our modern… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Time & Co. are, after all, the only quite honest and trustworthy publishers that we know. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
This life we live is a strange dream, and I don't believe at all any account men give of it. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In an ancient and dead language, any recognition of living nature attracts us. These are such sentences as were written while grass… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We seem to have forgotten that the expression "a liberal education" originally meant among the Romans one worthy of free men; while… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
All nations love the same jests and tales, Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, and the same translated suffice for all. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Everything that is printed and bound in a book contains some echo at least of the best that is in literature. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Remember that the smallest seed of faith is of more worth than the largest fruit of happiness. — 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
But it is fit that the Past should be dark; though the darkness is not so much a quality of the past… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Seeds, there are seeds enough which need only be stirred in with the soil where they lie, by an inspired voice or… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Paper is cheap, and authors need not now erase one book before they write another. Instead of cultivating the earth for wheat… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Homer and Shakespeare and Milton and Marvell and Wordsworth are but the rustling of leaves and crackling of twigs in the forest,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this respect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita in comparison with which our… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets,--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included,--breathes no quite… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to… — 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
