Poetry implies the whole truth. Philosophy expresses a particle of it.
—Journal, 26 January 1852Poets and philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast the hosts of unoriginal men.
—"Wild Apples"Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society—full of grit and gravel and two political parties are its two opposite halves which grind on each other.
—Journal, 10 November 1851Poverty was her lot, but she possessed those virtues without which the rich are but poor.
—"Died . . . Miss Anna Jones"Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicated, his fate.
—WaldenPursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence. Wherever a man separates from the multitude and goes his own way, there is a fork in the road, though the travelers along the highway see only a gap in the paling.
—Journal, 18 October 1855Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life, as a dog does his master’s chaise. Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still. Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.
—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 27 March 1848Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversReturning, stopped at Barrett’s sawmill while it rained a little. Was also attracted by the music of his saw. He was sawing a white oak log; was about to saw a very ugly and knotty white oak log into drag plank, making an angle.
—Journal, 19 May 1856Revolutions are never sudden. Not one man, nor many men, in a few years or generations, suffice to regulate events and dispose mankind for the revolutionary movement. The hero is but the crowning stone of the pyramid,—the keystone of the arch.
—Journal, 27 December 1837Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern, or grocery, or livery stable, or depot to which they lead.
—"Walking"Scholars are wont to sell their birthright for a mess of learning.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversScience is always brave, for to know, is to know good; doubt and danger quail before her eyes. What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she calmly scrutinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer for the array of arts that follow her train.
—"Natural History of Massachusetts"Science never saw a ghost nor does it look for any but it sees everywhere the traces —and it is itself the agent—of a Universal Intelligence.
—Journal, 2 December 1853Seeing at that moment three little red birds fly out of a crevice in the ruins, up into an arbor-vitae tree, which grew out of them, I asked him their names, in such French as I could muster, but he neither understood me or ornithology . . .
—A Yankee in CanadaSenses that take cognizance of outward things merely are of no avail. It matters not where or how far you travel? the farther commonly the worse? but how much alive you are.
—Journal, 6 May 1854