You must not count much upon what I can do or learn in New York.... Everything there disappoints me but the crowd;… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I like sometimes to take rank hold on life and spend my day more as the animals do. Perhaps I have owed… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
They take great pride in making their dinner cost much; I take my pride in making my dinner cost so little. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere,for I have had a little experience in that business,that there is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Observation is so wide awake, and facts are being so rapidly added to the sum of human experience, that it appears as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We go on dating from Cold Fridays and Great Snows; but a little colder Friday, or greater snow would put a period… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few are attracted strongly to Nature. In their reaction to Naturemen… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To have made even one person's life a little better, that is to succeed. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Perchance, coming generations will not abide the dissolution of the globe, but, availing themselves of future inventions in aerial locomotion, and the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is worth the while to live respectably unto ourselves. We can possibly get along with a neighbor, even with a bedfellow,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
One little bird not larger than a sparrow, it may have been a Phalarope, would alight on the turbulent surface where the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Bribed with a little sunlight and a few prismatic tints, we bless our Maker, and stave off his wrath with hymns. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As we grow older, we live more coarsely, we relax a little in our disciplines, and, to some extent, cease to obey… — 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 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
True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
An Englishman, methinks,--not to speak of other European nations,--habitually regards himself merely as a constituent part of theEnglish nation; he is a… — 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
