Men must speak English who can write Sanskrit; they must speak a modern language who write, perchance, an ancient and universal one. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language in which they were written must have a very… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A person who chooses to die or to risk death demonstrates that there are values, principles, maxims, that are more valuable to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The book has never been written which is to be accepted without any allowance. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Surely the writer is to address a world of laborers, and such therefore must be his own discipline. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; to read only the serenely… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is remarkable that almost all speakers and writers feel it to be incumbent on them, sooner or later, to prove or… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We can never safely exceed the actual facts in our narratives. Of pure invention, such as some suppose, there is no instance.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Today you may write a chapter on the advantages of traveling, and tomorrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The word which is best said came nearest to not being spoken at all, for it is cousin to a deed which… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Who cares what a man's style is, so it is intelligible,--as intelligible as his thought. Literally and really, the style is no… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Steady labor with the hands, which engrosses the attention also, is unquestionably the best method of removing palaver and sentimentality out of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Says I to myself” should be the motto of my journal. It is fatal to the writer to be too much possessed… — 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
The poet is he who can write some pure mythology today without the aid of posterity. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No man's thoughts are new, but the style of their expression is the never-failing novelty which cheers and refreshes men. If we… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Paper is cheap, and authors need not now erase one book before they write another. Instead of cultivating the earth for wheat… — 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 task… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are often struck by the force and precision of style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, easily attain when required… — 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
Letter-writing too often degenerates into a communicating of facts, and not of truths; of other men's deeds and not our thoughts.What are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Methinks some creeds in vestries and churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the Great Slave Lake, and that the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I thank you for your letter. I was very glad to get it; and I am glad again to write to you.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly, I think any fool can make a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No doubt Carlyle has a propensity to exaggerate the heroic in history, that is, he creates you an ideal hero rather than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
However much we admire the orator's occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or abovethe fleeting… — 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
