I do not know but thoughts written down thus in a journal might be printed in the same form with greater advantage than if the related ones were brought together into separate essays. Henry David Thoreau More Quotes by Henry David Thoreau More Quotes From Henry David Thoreau Water is a pioneer which the settler follows, taking advantage of its improvements. Henry David Thoreau pioneers improvement water I am a citizen of the world first, and of this country at a later and more convenient hour. Henry David Thoreau citizens country world How full of the creative genius is the air in which these [snowflakes] are generated! I should hardly admire them more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat. Nature is full of genius. Full of the divinity. So that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand. Henry David Thoreau stars beauty art We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very little of it has as yet been sung. The ancients had a juster notion of their poetic value than we. The most distinct and beautiful statements of any truth must take at last the mathematical form. We might so simplify the rules of moral philosophy, as well as of arithmetic, that one formula would express them both. Henry David Thoreau beautiful beauty art I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it. Henry David Thoreau father years thinking After all, I believe it is the style of thought entirely, and the style of expression, which makes the difference in books. Henry David Thoreau reading believe book A truly good book attracts very little favor to itself. It is so true that it teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down and commence living on its hint. When I read an indifferent book, it seems the best thing I can do, but the inspiring volume hardly leaves me leisure to finish its latter pages. It is slipping out of my fingers while I read. It creates no atmosphere in which it may be perused, but one in which its teachings may be practiced. It confers on me such wealth that I lay it down with regret. What I began by reading I must finish by acting. Henry David Thoreau regret teaching book It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book. Any distinguished traveler who comes to our shores is likely to get more dinners and speeches of welcome than he can well dispose of, but the best books, if noticed at all, meet with coldness and suspicion, or, what is worse, gratuitous, off-hand criticism. Henry David Thoreau reading book hands He who cannot read is worse than deaf and blind, is yet but half alive, is still-born. Henry David Thoreau deaf-and-blind reading book If men were to be destroyed and the books they have written were to be transmitted to a new race of creatures, in a new world, what kind of record would be found in them of so remarkable a phenomenon as the rainbow? Henry David Thoreau reading men book The woodchopper reads the wisdom of the ages recorded on the paper that holds his dinner, then lights his pipe with it. When we ask for a scrap of paper for the most trivial use, it may have the confessions of Augustine or the sonnets of Shakespeare, and we not observe it. The student kindles his fire, the editor packs his trunk, the sportsman loads his gun, the traveler wraps his dinner, the Irishman papers his shanty, the schoolboy peppers the plastering, the belle pins up her hair, with the printed thoughts of men. Henry David Thoreau gun reading book The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life. Henry David Thoreau reading wise book The Library is a wilderness of books. Henry David Thoreau library reading book There is always room and occasion enough for a true book on any subject; as there is room for more light the brightest day and more rays will not interfere with the first. Henry David Thoreau light reading book The chief want, in every state that I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants. Henry David Thoreau purpose responsibility want I would remind my countrymen, that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour. No matter how valuable law may be to protect your property, even to keep soul and body together, if it do not keep you and humanity together. Henry David Thoreau responsibility soul-and-body men What is wanted is men of principle, who recognize a higher law than the decision of the majority. The marines and the militia whose bodies were used lately were not men of sense nor of principle; in a high moral sense they were not men at all. Henry David Thoreau marine responsibility men As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to the public. Henry David Thoreau rare-beauty crowns country I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many pleasures which he will not know! Henry David Thoreau apples fields men Most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum - many for a glass of rum. Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth! Henry David Thoreau glasses sky men
