Henry David Thoreau quotes - page 28

I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it. (Henry David Thoreau)
No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Only that traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
We hate the kindness which we understand. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement. (Henry David Thoreau)
Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter's day. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics that is mixed mathematics. The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Enemies publish themselves. They declare war. The friend never declares his love. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy evil, that they may no longer have have it to regret. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
But why should not the New Englander try new adventures not lay so much stress on his grain, his potato and grass crop, and his orchards and raise other crops than these Why concern ourselves so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new generation of men. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
My eye is educated to discover anything on the ground, as chestnuts, etc. It is probably wholesomer to look at the ground much than at the heavens. (Henry David Thoreau)
To watch this crystal globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
What is a country without rabbits and partridges They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground. View quote
Henry David Thoreau