Let us not play at kittly-benders. There is a solid bottom everywhere. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Your scheme must be the framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Exaggerated history is poetry, and truth referred to a new standard. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though they may not recommend themselves to the sense which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Poetry implies the whole truth. Philosophy expresses a particle of it. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Stuff a cold and starve a cold are but two ways. They are the two practices, both always in full blast. Yet… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the bigotry with which… — 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
How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are! — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
That excitement about Kossuth, consider how characteristic, but superficial, it was!--only another kind of politics or dancing. Men were making speeches to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You speak of poverty and dependence. Who are poor and dependent? Who are rich and independent? When was it that men agreed… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Truth strikes us from behind and in the dark, as well as from before and in broad daylight. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There are secret articles in our treaties with the gods, of more importance than all the rest, which the historian can never… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Deep are the foundations of sincerity. Even stone walls have their foundation below the frost. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“As with our colleges, so with a hundred ‘modern improvements;’ there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive… — 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
