Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity when contrasted with a finer intelligence. They appear but as the fashions… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
For a companion, I require one who will make an equal demand on me with my own genius. Such a one will… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We sometimes meet uncivil men, children of Amazons, who dwell by mountain paths, and are said to be inhospitable to strangers; whose… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A true politeness does not result from any hasty and artificial polishing, it is true, but grows naturally in characters of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is reason in the distinction of civil and uncivil. The manners are sometimes so rough a rind that we doubt whether… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There may be an excess of cultivation as well as of anything else, until civilization becomes pathetic. A highly cultivated man,--all whose… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. We should never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I often accuse my finest acquaintances of an immense frivolity; for, while there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
My neighbors tell me of their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilities they met at the dinner-table; but I am… — 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
