Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or eventhe Elizabethan… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
But, on more accounts than one, I had had enough of moose-hunting. I had not come to the woods for this purpose,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The chief want, in every state that I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not remember anything which Confucius has said directly respecting man's "origin, purpose, and destiny." He was more practical than that.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit; it is a Spirit's breath. A just man's purpose cannot be split on any Grampus… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is not enough that we are truthful; we must cherish and carry out high purposes to be truthful about. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A simple woman down in Tyngsborough, at whose house I once stopped to get a draught of water, when I said, recognizing… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men go to a fire for entertainment. When I see how eagerly men will run to a fire, whether in warm or… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I must conclude that Conscience, if that be the name of it, was not given us for no purpose, or for a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on… — 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
