Is not the midnight like Central Africa to most of us? Are we not tempted to explore it,--to penetrate to the shores… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Art is not tame, and Nature is not wild, in the ordinary sense. A perfect work of man's art would also be… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The hounding of a dog pursuing a fox or other animal in the horizon may have first suggested the notes of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A truly good book is something as wildly natural and primitive, mysterious and marvelous, ambrosial and fertile as a fungus or a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moonnor… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Doubtless, we are as slow to conceive of Paradise as of Heaven, of a perfect natural as of a perfect spiritual world.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Having reached the term of his natural life"; Mwould it not be truer to say, Having reached the term of his unnatural… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and unwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, far more so than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How insupportable would be the days, if the night with its dews and darkness did not come to restore the drooping world.… — 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