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
You may rely on it that you have the best of me in my books, and that I am not worth seeing… — 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
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
I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more… — 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
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
The poet is he who can write some pure mythology today without the aid of posterity. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character. — 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
The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and… — 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
Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been inconceivably… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper,... in the poet's… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I lately met with an old volume from a London bookshop, containing the Greek Minor Poets, and it was a pleasure to… — 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 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
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
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
English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets,--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included,--breathes no quite… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see… — 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
