Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To say that God has given a man many and great talents frequently means that he has brought his heavens down within… — 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
The Grecian are youthful and erring and fallen gods, with the vices of men, but in many important respects essentially of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If a man were to place himself in an attitude to bear manfully the greatest evil that can be inflicted on him,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
All sensuality is one, though it takes many forms; all purity is one. It is the same whether a man eat, or… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature-of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter-such health, such cheer, they afford forever!… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have no doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric age, for men have always… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both inperson and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is not every man who can be a Christian, even in a very moderate sense, whatever education you give him. It… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I sometimes despair of getting anything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men. They would have… — 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
It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Have we even so much as discovered and settled the shores? Let a man travel on foot along the coastand tell me… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere makeshifts, and a shirking of the real business… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I am convinced that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful-while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I am amused to see from my window here how busily a man has divided and staked off his domain. God must… — 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
Some, it seems to me, elect their rulers for their crookedness. But I think that a straight stick makes the best cane,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No man who acts from a sense of duty ever puts the lesser duty above the greater. No man has the desire… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Simplicity is the law of Nature for man as well as for flowers. When the tapestry (corolla) of the nuptial bed (calyx)… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A fortified town is like a man cased in the heavy armor of antiquity, with a horse-load of broadswords and small arms… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable.… — 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
Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It gets laughed at because it is a small town, I know, but nevertheless it is a place where great men may… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In the mythus a superhuman intelligence uses the unconscious thoughts and dreams of men as its hieroglyphics to address men unborn. — 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
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
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
“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
“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
“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
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
A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
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
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
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
The lumberers rarely trouble themselves to put out their fires, such is the dampness of the primitive forest; and this is one cause, no… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
“When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
Wealth is measured by the level of experience in all aspects of life — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
