Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Poets & Poetry
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"
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"
The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have.—Walden
The language of poetry is infantile. It cannot talk.—Journal, 23 February 1842
The mass of men are very unpoetic yet that Adam that names things is always a poet.—Journal, 30 July 1853
The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.—Walden
