All men are partially buried inthe grave of custom, and of some we see only the crown of the head above ground.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The virtue which we appreciate, we to some extent appropriate. — 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
The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor coöperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is comparatively a faint and reflected beauty that is admired, not an essential and intrinsic one. It is because the old… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact.... In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There may be an excess of cultivation as well as of anything else, until civilization becomes pathetic. A highly cultivated man,--all whose… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I never was so rapid in my virtue but my vice kept up with me. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
He who parades his virtues seldom leads the parade. He who puts up with insult invites injury. Health requires this relaxation, this… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Exaggeration! was ever any virtue attributed to a man without exaggeration? was ever any vice, without infinite exaggeration? Do we not exaggerate… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Somehow strangely the vice of men gets well represented and protected but their virtue has none to plead its cause - nor… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass,… — 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
