Henry David Thoreau Quotations: THOUGHTS & OPINIONS
A Friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.—Walden
All a man's strength and all his weakness go to make up the authority of any particular opinion which he may utter. He is strong or weak with all his strength and weakness combined. If he is your friend, you may have to consider that he loves you, but perchance he also loves gingerbread.—Journal, 16 February 1854
All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which it taking place every instant.—Walden
Ancient history has an air of antiquity. It should be more modern. It is written as if the spectator should be thinking of the backside of the picture on the wall, or as if the author expected that the dead would be his readers, and wished to detail to them their own experience.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
And as for advice, the information floating in the atmosphere of society is an evanescent and unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules.—"Paradise (to be) Regained"
Any sincere thought is irresistible.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
But it is not so easy a thing to sympathize with another, though you may have the best disposition to do it.—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 1 January 1859
Compliments and flattery oftenest excite my contempt by the pretension they imply, for who is he that assumes to flatter me? To compliment often implies an assumption of superiority in the complimenter. It is, in fact, a subtle detraction.—Journal, 27 March 1857
Enough has been said in these days of the charm of fluent writing. We hear it complained of some works of genius, that they have fine thoughts, but are irregular and have no flow. But even the mountain peaks in the horizon are, to the eye of science, parts of one range. We should consider that the flow of thought is more like a tidal wave than a prone river, and is the result of a celestial influence, not of any declivity in its channel.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
