A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is no doubt that the loftiest written wisdom is either rhymed or in some way musically measured,--is, in form as well… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“They who suspect a Mephistophiles, or sneering, satirical devil, under all, have not learned the secret of true humor, which sympathizes with… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is the characteristic of great poems that they will yield of their sense in due proportion to the hasty and the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What avail all your scholarly accomplishments and learning, compared with wisdom and manhood? To omit his other behavior, see whata work this… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Not by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment, and childlike mirth-fulness. If you would know… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is always singular, but encouraging, to meet with common sense in very old books, as the Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma; a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Concord is just as idiotic as ever in relation to the spirits and their knockings. Most people here believe in a spiritual… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The woodchopper reads the wisdom of the ages recorded on the paper that holds his dinner, then lights his pipe with it.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of… — 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
Any man will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the… — 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
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
Probe the universe in a myriad of points. ... He is a wise man who has taken many views; to whom stones… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the common… — 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
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
“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
“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
“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
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
A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
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
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
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
The lumberers rarely trouble themselves to put out their fires, such is the dampness of the primitive forest; and this is one cause, no… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
“When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
Wealth is measured by the level of experience in all aspects of life — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share
