Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Exaggerated history is poetry, and truth referred to a new standard. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well as its essence. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The culture of the hop ... so analagous to the culture and uses of the grape, may afford a theme for future poets. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Color, which is the poet's wealth, is so expensive that most take to mere outline sketches and become men of science. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Where the most beautiful wild flowers grow, there mans spirit is fed and poets grow. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The prosaic man sees things badly, or with the bodily sense; but the poet sees them clad in beauty, with the spiritual… — 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
There are two classes of men called poets. The one cultivates life, the other art,... one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The murmurs of many a famous river on the other side of the globe reach even to us here, as to more… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,--for if men… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is no doubt that the loftiest written wisdom is either rhymed or in some way musically measured,--is, in form as well… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet's body even is not fed like other men's, but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of the gods,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet will maintain serenity in spite of all disappointments. He is expected to preserve an unconcerned and healthy outlook over the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Some poems are for holidays only. They are polished and sweet, but it is the sweetness of sugar, and not such as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our poets have sung of wine, the product of a foreign plant which commonly they never saw, as if our own plants… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
But there are spirits of a yet more liberal culture, to whom no simplicity is barren. There are not only stately pines,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is the characteristic of great poems that they will yield of their sense in due proportion to the hasty and the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and… — 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
“This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defense, but the toughest son… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our bread need not ever be sour or hard to digest. What Nature is to the mind she is also to the… — 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
The best poets, after all, exhibit only a tame and civil side of nature. They have not seen the west side of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet is he who can write some pure mythology today without the aid of posterity. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The condition-of-England question is a practical one. The condition of England demands a hero, not a poet. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten today, that I might go a- fishing. That's the… — 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 genuine remains of Ossian, or those ancient poems which bear his name, though of less fame and extent, are, in many… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Each reader discovers for himself that, with respect to the simpler features of nature, succeeding poets have done little else than copy… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When we come down into the distant village, visible from the mountain-top, the nobler inhabitants with whom we peopled it have departed,… — 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
