"A sentence should be read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end."
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Quote collection
Henry David Thoreau quotes (page 45 of 139)
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"I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows."
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"Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them."
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"There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance."
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"There is absolutely no common sense, it is common non-sense."
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"Men are probably nearer the essential truth in their superstitions than in their science."
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"When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip."
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"By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude."
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"A kitten is so flexible that she is almost double; the hind parts are equivalent to another kitten with which the fore part plays. She does not discover that her tail belongs to her till you tread upon it."
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"Surely, we are provided with senses as well fitted to penetrate the spaces of the real, the substantial, the eternal, as these outward are to penetrate the material universe. Veias, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates, Christ, Shakespeare, Swedenborg,--these are some of our astronomers."
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"Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without."
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"Whatever we leave to God, God does and blesses us."
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"How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?"
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"In solitude especialy do we begin to appreciate the advantage of living with someone who can think."
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"Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!"
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"Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world."
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"Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried."
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"It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety."
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"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."
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"My greatest skill has been to want but little."
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