When we consider the weak and nerveless periods of some literary men, who perchance in feet and inches come up to the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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
Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmie that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I found that they knew but little of the history of their race, and could be entertained by stories about their ancestors… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If we will admit time into our thoughts at all, the mythologies, those vestiges of ancient poems, wrecks of poems, so to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If men were to be destroyed and the books they have written were to be transmitted to a new race of creatures,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The seeds of the life of fishes are everywhere disseminated, whether the winds waft them, or the waters float them, or the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement, to leave off… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Do not despair of life. You have no doubt force enough to overcome your obstacles. Think of the fox prowling through wood… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Why should not we, who have renounced the king's authority, have our national preserves, where no villages need be destroyed, in which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The Grecian are youthful and erring and fallen gods, with the vices of men, but in many important respects essentially of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Perchance, coming generations will not abide the dissolution of the globe, but, availing themselves of future inventions in aerial locomotion, and the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Do not despair of life. Think of the fox, prowling in a winter night to satisfy his hunger. His race survives; I… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
For one that comes with a pencil to sketch or sing, a thousand come with an axe or rifle. What a coarse… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature-of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter-such health, such cheer, they afford forever!… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Unless the human race perspire more than I do, there is no occasion to live by the sweat of their brow. If… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nature is slow, but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-chopping at fifty cents a cord, and a camp in the woods, will not be… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
For the most part we stupidly confound one man with another. The dull distinguish only races or nations, or at most classes,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind… — 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
