It would be worthy of the age to print together the collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid.” — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How rarely I meet with a man who can be free, even in thought! We all live according to rule. Some men… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions… — 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
All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we should still be growing… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? — 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
I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the severest satire.... The greater the genius, the keener the… — 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
The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
He is the rich man, and enjoys the fruit of his riches, who summer and winter forever can find delight in his… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What a battle a man must fight everywhere to maintain his standing army of thoughts, and march with them in orderly array… — 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
A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is a fitter color than white for a man,--a denizen of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web… — 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
