The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
For my own part, I commonly attend more to nature than to man, but any affecting human event may blind our eyes… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Almost any mode of observation will be successful at last, for what is most wanted is method. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nature is not made after such a fashion as we would have her. We piously exaggerate her wonders, as the scenery around… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears to hear it. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Observation is so wide awake, and facts are being so rapidly added to the sum of human experience, that it appears as… — 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
The gods are partial to no era, but steadily shines their light in the heavens, while the eye of the beholder is… — 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
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
Science with its retorts would have put me to sleep; it was the opportunity to be ignorant that I improved. It suggested… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Really to see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to a universal fact, would preserve us… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The Man of Genius may at the same time be, indeed is commonly, an Artist, but the two are not to be… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is a very true and expressive phrase, "He looked daggers at me," for the first pattern and prototype of all daggers… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man must generally get away some hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads,--and then we can hardly… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If I wished to see a mountain or other scenery under the most favorable auspices, I would go to it in foul… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I delight to come to my bearings,... not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sitthoughtfully… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man sees only what concerns him.... How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved bythem.… — 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
