Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Truth & Wisdom
There must be some narrowness in the soul that compels one to have secrets.—Journal, 21 February 1842
To live in relations of truth and sincerity with men is to dwell in a frontier country.—Journal, 12 January 1852
Truth has properly no opponent, for nothing gets so far up on the other side as to be opposite.—Journal, 12 February 1840
Truth is ever returning into herself. I glimpse one feature to-day, another to-morrow; and the next day they are blended.—Journal, 13 November 1837
Truth strikes us from behind, and in the dark, as well as from before and in broad day-light.—Journal, 5 November 1837
Very few men can speak of Nature with any truth. They confer no favor; they do not speak a good word for her.—Journal, 7-10 March 1841
We do not learn much from learned books, but from true, sincere, human books, from frank and honest biographies.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
What are the natural features which make a township handsome? A river, with its waterfalls and meadows, a lake, a hill, a cliff or individual rocks, a forest, and ancient trees standing singly. Such things are beautiful; they have a high use which dollars and cents never represent. If the inhabitants of a town were wise, they would seek to preserve these things, though at a considerable expense; for such things educate far more than any hired teachers or preachers, or any at present recognized system of school education.—Journal, 3 January 1861
What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.—Walden
What is the value of his esteem who does not justly esteem another?—Journal, 15 February 1851
