Only what is thought, said, or done at a certain rare coincidence is good. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is said that some Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we can imagine what a canoe may do. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Of all the men who were said to be my contemporaries, it seemed to me that John Brown was the only one… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We have need to be earth-born as well as heaven-born, gegeneis, as was said of the Titans of old, or in a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is said that a rogue does not look you in the face, neither does an honest man look at you as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience, but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a… — 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
As our domestic fowls are said to have their original in the wild pheasant of India, so our domestic thoughts have their… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In 1848, Thoreau went to jail for refusing, as a protest against the Mexican war, to pay his poll tax. When RW… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I think it will be found that he who speaks with most authority on a given subject is not ignorant of what… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to… — 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
I should say that the useful results of science had accumulated, but that there had been no accumulation of knowledge, strictly speaking,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As we lay huddled together under the tent, which leaked considerably about the sides, with our baggage at our feet, we listened… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man must generally get away some hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is said that knowledge is power, and the like.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Why should Canada, wild and unsettled as it is, impress us as an older country than the States, unless because her institutions… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The next day the Indian told me their name for this light,--artoosoq',--and on my inquiring concerning the will-o'-the-wisp, and the like phenomena,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be fought; but surely it cannot be… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Christ was a sublime actor on the stage of the world. He knew what he was thinking of when he said, "Heaven… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To one who habitually endeavors to contemplate the true state of things, the political state can hardly be said to have any… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Ice is an interesting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some in the ice-houses at Fresh Pond five years… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Much is said about the progress of science in these centuries. I should say that the useful results of science had accumulated,… — 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
We sometimes meet uncivil men, children of Amazons, who dwell by mountain paths, and are said to be inhospitable to strangers; whose… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The word which is best said came nearest to not being spoken at all, for it is cousin to a deed which… — 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
