What is commonly honored with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct. Men do not, after all, love… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Trade and commerce, if they were not made of Indian rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have made a very rude translation of the Seven against Thebes, and Pindar too I have looked at, and wish he… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or eventhe Elizabethan… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk across lots. Roads are made for horses and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmie that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The world, which the Greeks called Beauty, has been made such by being gradually divested of every ornament which was not fitted… — 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
The next day the Indian told me their name for this light,--artoosoq',--and on my inquiring concerning the will-o'-the-wisp, and the like phenomena,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Most men would feel shame if caught preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of animal or vegetable food,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have hardly begun to live on Staten Island yet; but, like the man who, when forbidden to tread on English ground,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness. When sometimes I am reminded that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nature is not made after such a fashion as we would have her. We piously exaggerate her wonders, as the scenery around… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I think that Nature meant kindly when she made our brothers few. However, my voice is still for peace. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The word which is best said came nearest to not being spoken at all, for it is cousin to a deed which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have never met with a friend who furnished me sea-room. I have only tacked a few times and come to anchor… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it. — 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
