Henry David Thoreau Quotations: EDUCATION
He sketches first, with strong, practical English pencil, the essential features in outline, black on white, more faithfully that Dryasdust would have done, telling us wisely whom and what to mark, to save time, and then with a brush of camel's hair, or sometimes with more expeditious swab, he lays on the bright and fast colors of his humor everywhere.—"Thomas Carlyle and His Works"
How admirably the artist is made to accomplish his self-culture by devotion to his art! The wood-sawyer, through his effort to do his work well, becomes not merely a better wood-sawyer, but measurably a better man.—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 19 December 1853
How far can you carry your practicalness? How far does your knowledge really extend?—Journal, 7 June 1851
How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health! The discipline of the schools or of business can never impart such serenity to the mind.—Journal, 6 May 1851
How little I know of that arbor-vitae when I have learned only what science can tell me!—Journal, 5 March 1858
I am in the lecture field—but my subjects are not scientific—[rather Transcendentalist & aesthetic. I devote myself to the absorption of nature generally.—Thoreau to Charles C. Morse, 12 July 1860
I am still a learner, not a teacher, feeding somewhat omnivorously, browsing both stalk and leaves—but I shall perhaps be enabled to speak with the more precision and authority by and by—if philosophy and sentiment are not buried under a multitude of details.—Thoreau to H. G. O. Blake, 21 May 1856
I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before—a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.—"Walking"
I expect the Christian not to be superstitious but to be distinguished by the clearness of his knowledge, the strength of his faith, the breadth of his humanity.—Journal, 25 September 1851
I have become sadly scientific.—Thoreau to Sophia Thoreau, 13 July 1852
