Henry David Thoreau Quotations: READING, WRITING & WRITERS
No man is rich enough to keep a poet in his pay.—Journal, 20 March 1858
No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions in a precious casket.—Walden
One sentence of perennial poetry would make me forget—would atone for volumes of mere science.—Journal, 5 August 1851
Poetry implies the whole truth. Philosophy expresses a particle of it.—Journal, 26 January 1852
Poets and philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast the hosts of unoriginal men.—"Wild Apples"
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
So far as the natural history is concerned, you often have your choice between uninteresting truth and interesting falsehood.—Journal, 5 March 1860
Some of these sublime sentences, as the Chaldaean oracles of Zoroaster, still surviving after a thousand revolutions and translations, alone make us doubt if the poetic form and dress are not transitory, and not essential to the most effective and enduring expression of thought.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The art of life, of a poet's life is, not having any thing to do, to do something.—Journal, 29 April 1852
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances.—"Natural History of Massachusetts"
