Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Writing
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 words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burs.—Journal, 4 June 1839
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 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
This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once.—Walden
Though I write every day yet when I say a good thing, it seems as it I wrote but rarely.—Journal, 28 February 1841
Today you may write a chapter on the advantages of traveling, and tomorrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not traveling.—Journal, 11 November 1851
