The true finish is the work of time, and the use to which a thing is put. The elements are still polishing… — 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 heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The culture of the hop ... so analagous to the culture and uses of the grape, may afford a theme for future poets. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
An Englishman, methinks,--not to speak of other European nations,--habitually regards himself merely as a constituent part of theEnglish nation; he is a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is such a thing as caste, even in the West; but it is comparatively faint; it is conservatism here. It says,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field,--effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say,--and devour… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of "expediency." There is no such thing as sliding… — 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
I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What is the use of going right over the old track again? There is an adder in the path which your own… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men are in the main alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. If a low use… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I now first began to inhabit my house, I may say, when I began to use it for warmth as well as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nature would not appear so rich, the profusion so rich, if we knew a use for everything. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I bought me a spy-glass some weeks since. I buy but a few things, and those not till long after I begin… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it; that is a penalty which reformed… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Where the citizen uses a mere sliver or board, the pioneer uses the whole trunk of a tree. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you look over a list of medicinal recipes in vogue in the last century, how foolish and useless they are seen… — 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
