“We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The lichen on the rocks is a rude and simple shield which beginning and imperfect Nature suspended there. Still hangs her wrinkledtrophy. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nature is fair in proportion as the youth is pure. The heavens and the earth are one flower ; the earth is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage and their notes are in harmony with the flowers,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I long for wildness, a nature which I cannot put my foot through, woods where the wood thrush forever sings, where the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Perhaps this was the first instance of that quiet way of "speaking for" a place not yet occupied, or at least not… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
One can hardly imagine a more healthful employment, or one more favorable to contemplation and the observation of nature. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Already nature is serving all those uses which science slowly derives on a much higher and grander scale to him that will… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Very few men can speak of Nature, for instance, with any truth. They overstep her modesty, somehow or other, and confer no… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The process of discovery is very simple. An unwearied and systematic application of known laws to nature causes the unknown to reveal… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few are attracted strongly to Nature. In their reaction to Naturemen… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places, to attend all the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have just been through the process of killing a cistudo for the sake of science; but I cannot excuse myself for… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have no designs on society, or nature, or God. I am simply what I am, or I begin to be that.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a… — 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
