Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Writing
It is not easy to write in a journal what interests us at any time, because to write it is not what interests us.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
It is vain to try to write unless you feel strong in the knees.—Journal, 9 August 1841
It is wise to write on many subjects, to try many themes, that so you may find the right and inspiring one.—Journal, 4 September 1851
Language is the most perfect work of art in the world. The chisel of a thousand years retouches it.—Journal, 27 July 1840
Men write in a florid style only because they would match the simple beauties of the plainest speech. They prefer to be misunderstood, rather than come short of its exuberance.—Journal, 23 March 1842
My pen is a lever which, in proportion as the near end stirs me further within, the further end reaches to a greater depth in the reader.—Journal, 4 August 1841
My work is writing, and I do not hesitate, though I know that no subject is too trivial for me, tried by ordinary standards; for, ye fools, the theme is nothing, the life is everything.—Journal, 18 October 1856
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 forcible writer does not go far for his themes—his ideas are not far-fetched.—Journal, 29 January 1852
The forcible writer stands bodily behind his words with his experience. He does not make books out of books, but he has been there in person.—Journal, 3 February 1852
