There have been heroes for whom this world seemed expressly prepared, as if creation had at last succeeded; whose daily life was… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Long as I have lived, and many blasphemers as I have heard and seen, I have never yet heard or witnessed any… — 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
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
We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men go to a fire for entertainment. When I see how eagerly men will run to a fire, whether in warm or… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to… — 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
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
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
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
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
Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is… — 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
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
We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Science with its retorts would have put me to sleep; it was the opportunity to be ignorant that I improved. It suggested… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see… — 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
The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor coöperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I would that our farmers when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when… — 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
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
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
I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those who have the steering of me that, by the want of pecuniary… — 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
