Especially the transcendental philosophy needs the leaven of humor to render it light and digestible. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and generalizes their widest deductions. — 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 fact is, mental philosophy is very like Poverty, which, you know, begins at home; and indeed, when it goes abroad, it… — 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
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
Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Any moral philosophy is exceedingly rare. This of Menu addresses our privacy more than most. It is a more private and familiar,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Philosophy, certainly, is some account of truths the fragments and very insignificant parts of which man will practice in this workshop; truths… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is… — 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
“The moose will perhaps one day become extinct; but how naturally then, when it exists only as a fossil relic, and unseen… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
His style is eminently colloquial, and no wonder it is strange to meet with in a book. It is not literary or… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The golden mean in ethics, as in physics, is the centre of the system and that about which all revolve, and though… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You ask if there is no doctrine of sorrow in my philosophy. Of acute sorrow I suppose that I know comparatively little.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“I have read in a Hindoo book, that "there was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy from his native city,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in comparison with which our modern… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita in comparison with which our… — 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
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
It is not easy to make our lives respectable by any course of activity. We must repeatedly withdraw into our shells of… — 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
“that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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
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
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
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
“The spruce and cedar on its shores, hung with gray lichens, looked at a distance like the ghosts of trees. Ducks were… — 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
“I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native rights — any evidence that they have not wholly lost their… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
All the moral laws are readily translated into natural philosophy, for often we have only to restore the primitive meaning of thewords… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It cannot but affect our philosophy favorably to be reminded of these shoals of migratory fishes, of salmon, shad, alewives, marsh-bankers, and… — 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
