As our domestic fowls are said to have their original in the wild pheasant of India, so our domestic thoughts have their… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every wild apple shrub excites our expectation thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit it and read it are old women… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It would be no reproach to a philosopher, that he knew the future better than the past, or even than the present.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forestrots below,such a town is fitted to raise not only corn… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The Oriental philosophy approaches easily loftier themes than the modern aspires to; and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about them. It… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Beside some philosophers of larger vision, Carlyle stands like an honest, half-despairing boy, grasping at some details only of their world systems. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The philosopher's conception of things will, above all, be truer than other men's, and his philosophy will subordinate all the circumstances of… — 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
To be a philosopher... is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What the first philosopher taught the last will have to repeat. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindu, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The savage lives simply through ignorance and idleness or laziness, but the philosopher lives simply through wisdom. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The chickadee and nuthatch are more inspiring society than statesmen and philosophers, and we shall return to these last as to more… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed anddrawn… — 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