Henry David Thoreau Quotations: READING, WRITING & WRITERS
The scholar requires hard labor as an impetus to his pen. He will learn to grasp it as firmly and wield it as gracefully and effectually as an axe or a sword.—Journal, 5 January 1842
The sum of what the writer of what ever class has to report is simply some human experience, whether he be poet or philosopher or man of science.—Journal, 6 May 1854
The woodchopper reads the wisdom of the ages recorded on the paper that holds his dinner, then lights his pipe with it. When we ask for a scrap of paper for the most trivial use, it may have the confessions of Augustine or the sonnets of Shakespeare, and we not observe it. The student kindles his fire, the editor packs his trunk, the sportsman loads his gun, the traveler wraps his dinner, the Irishman papers his shanty, the schoolboy peppers the plastering, the belle pins up her hair, with the printed thoughts of men.—Journal, 10 March 1856
The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burs.—Journal, 4 June 1839
The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them. They have only been read as the multitude read the stars, at most astrologically, not astronomically.—Walden
The writer needs the suggestion and correction that a correspondent or companion is.—Journal, 23 August 1858
There are two classes of authors—the one write the history of their times; the other their biography.—Journal, 20 April 1841
There is a sort of homely truth and naturalness in some books, which is very rare to find, and yet look quite cheap.—Journal, 13 March 1841
There is always room and occasion enough for a true book on any subject; as there is room for more light the brightest day and more rays will not interfere with the first.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
There is many a book which ripples on like a freshet, and flows as glibly as a mill-stream sucking under a causeway; and when their authors are in the full tide of their discourse, Pythagoras and Plato and Jamblichus halt beside them.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
