Reading Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

— Henry David Thoreau

The Library is a wilderness of books.

— Henry David Thoreau

Do not read the newspapers.

— Henry David Thoreau

He who cannot read is worse than deaf and blind, is yet but half alive, is still-born.

— Henry David Thoreau

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

— Henry David Thoreau

Why should we leave it to Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our reading?

— Henry David Thoreau

I never read a novel, they have so little real life and thought in them.

— Henry David Thoreau

Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.

— Henry David Thoreau

I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.

— Henry David Thoreau

Books that are books are all that you want, and there are but a half dozen in any thousand.

— Henry David Thoreau

Certainly, we do not need to be soothed and entertained always like children. He who resorts to the easy novel, because he…

— Henry David Thoreau

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its…

— Henry David Thoreau

A book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra firma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of navigation by those…

— Henry David Thoreau

The whole of the day should not be daytime; there should be one hour, if not more, which the day did not…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the…

— Henry David Thoreau

There is always room and occasion enough for a true book on any subject; as there is room for more light the…

— Henry David Thoreau

I have not read far in the statutes of this Commonwealth. It is not profitable reading. They do not always say what…

— Henry David Thoreau

“Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

Since you are my readers, and I have not been much of a traveler, I will not talk about people a thousand…

— Henry David Thoreau

It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book.…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

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

After reading Howitt's account of the Australian gold-diggings one evening,... I asked myself why I might not be washing some golddaily, though…

— Henry David Thoreau

We should read history as little critically as we consider the landscape, and be more interested by the atmospheric tints and various…

— Henry David Thoreau

“It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which,…

— Henry David Thoreau

Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow…

— Henry David Thoreau

“A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons…

— Henry David Thoreau

A truly good book attracts very little favor to itself. It is so true that it teaches me better than to read…

— Henry David Thoreau

It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; to read only the serenely…

— Henry David Thoreau

The woodchopper reads the wisdom of the ages recorded on the paper that holds his dinner, then lights his pipe with it.…

— Henry David Thoreau

Any man will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the…

— Henry David Thoreau

After all, I believe it is the style of thought entirely, and the style of expression, which makes the difference in books.

— Henry David Thoreau

It is one of the signs of the times. We confess that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas,…

— Henry David Thoreau

“A truly good book…teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down and commence living on its hint.…

— Henry David Thoreau

In Homer and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral poets.…

— Henry David Thoreau

The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we…

— Henry David Thoreau

It is a relief to read some true book, wherein all are equally dead,--equally alive. I think the best parts of Shakespeare…

— Henry David Thoreau