If words were invented to conceal thought, newspapers are a great improvement of a bad invention — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If all were as it seems, and men made the elements their servants for noble ends! — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Almost any mode of observation will be successful at last, for what is most wanted is method. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our science, so called, is always more barren and mixed with error than our sympathies. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men are probably nearer the essential truth in their superstitions than in their science. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The birds I heard today, which, fortunately, did not come within the scope of my science, sang as freshly as if it… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Verily, chemistry is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The greatest and saddest defect is not credulity, but an habitual forgetfulness that our science is ignorance. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The whole body of what is now called moral or ethical truth existed in the golden age as abstract science. Or, if… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“The man of science, who is not seeking for expression but for a fact to be expressed merely, studies nature as a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Color, which is the poet's wealth, is so expensive that most take to mere outline sketches and become men of science. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Observation is so wide awake, and facts are being so rapidly added to the sum of human experience, that it appears as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You can hardly convince a man of error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
He who is conversant with the supernal powers will not worship these inferior deities of the wind, waves, tide, and sunshine. Butwe… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and "spare shirt," "leathern breeches" and "gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The poet to-day, notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Long enough I had heard of irrelevant things; now at length I was glad to make acquaintance with the light that dwells… — 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 true man of science will know nature better by his finer organization; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better than… — 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
He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Science with its retorts would have put me to sleep; it was the opportunity to be ignorant that I improved. It suggested… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It seems to us that no travelerhas ever explored them, and not with standing the wonders which science is else where revealing… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have just been through the process of killing a cistudo for the sake of science; but I cannot excuse myself for… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Whether he sleeps or wakes, whether he runs or walks, whether he uses a microscope or a telescope, or his naked eye,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and generalizes their widest deductions. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting to me. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is a chasm between knowledge and ignorance which the arches of science can never span. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is more religion in men's science, than there is science in their religion. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
With all your science can you tell me how it is, and when it is, that light comes into the soul? — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man receives only what he is ready to receive... The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with… — 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
