We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology!—I know of no reading of another's experience so startling and informing as this would be.—Walden
We should read history as little critically as we consider the landscape, and be more interested by the atmospheric tints and various lights and shades which the intervening spaces create, than by its groundwork and composition. It is the morning now turned evening and seen in the west,—the same sun, but a new light and atmosphere. Its beauty is like the sunset; not a fresco painting on a wall, flat and bounded, but atmospheric and roving or free.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
What institutions of man can survive a morning experience?—Journal, 24 May 1851
What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?—Walden
What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Whatever of past or present wisdom has published itself to the world, is palpable falsehood till it come and utter itself by my side.—Journal, 4 August 1838
When I hear music I fear no danger, I am invulnerable, I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times and to the latest.—Journal, 13 January 1857
When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
With many men their fine manners are a lie all over, a skim-coat or finish of falsehood. They are not brave enough to do without this sort of armor, which they wear night and day.—Journal, 29 March 1858
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