Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

We talk about a representative government; but what a monster is that where the noblest faculties of the mind, and the whole heart, are not represented.

If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairty tale from the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages.

the man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.

He has no time to be anything but a machine. How

Und wirklich, je mehr er sich zu erniedrigen schien, desto mehr schien er erhöht zu werden.

O convívio social, geralmente, é banal demais

We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention.

I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another.

Probabilmente ci sono delle parole rivolte giusto alla nostra condizione che, se le potessimo davvero sentire e capire, sarebbero e potrebbero forse rivelare il volto diverso delle cose. Quanti uomini hanno dato inizio a una nuova epoca della propria vita dalla lettura d'un libro! Esiste forse anche per noi un libro che mette in luce i nostri miracoli e ne rivela di nuovi. Le cose che adesso ci sembrano inesprimibili possiamo trovarle espresse altrove.

In the night the eyes are partly closed, or retire into the head. Other senses take the lead. The walker is guided as well by the sense of smell. Every plant and field and forest emits its odor now, —swamp-pink in the meadow, and tansy in the road; and there is the peculiar dry scent of corn which has begun to show its tassels. The senses both of hearing and smelling are more alert. We hear the tinkling of rills which we never detected before.

Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper.

Nicht wir fahren auf den Eisenbahnschienen; die Eisenbahn fährt auf uns.

Nuestras casas son una propiedad tan aparatosa que a menudo estamos más encerrados que alojados en ellas.

The callous palms of the labourer are conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness.

be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

Lo que llamamos resignación no es más que una confirmación de la desesperación.

but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them—as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon—I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.

Some are dining in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and no be the biggest pygmy he can be? Let everyone mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.

Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made. The

Be true to your work, your word, and you're friend.

I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer.

books are the society we keep... Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.