I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will tax… — 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
I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with… — 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
There is a higher law affecting our relation to pines as well as to men. A pine cut down, a dead pine,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
So near along life's stream are the fountains of innocence and youth making fertile its sandy margin; and the voyageur will do… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very little of it has as yet been sung. The ancients had… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To speak or do anything that shall concern mankind, one must speak and act as if well, or from that grain of… — 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
The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of… — 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
I confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises.... While my townsmen and women are devoted in somany ways… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The state does not demand justice of its members, but thinks that it succeeds very well with the least degree of it,… — 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
As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If thousands are thrown out of employment, it suggests that they were not well employed. Why don't they take the hint? It… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Each reaching and aspiration is an instinct with which all nature consists and cöoperates, and therefore it is not in vain. But… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive… — 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
Simplicity is the law of nature for men as well as for flowers. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest. They are spoken firmly and conclusively, as if… — 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
