Quote

The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.

Henry David Thoreau

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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Poet
Translator
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Like
Living
Covered
Inaccessible
Science
Forests
Collected
Lichens
Stills
Green
Moss
Mosses
Part
Waste
Supports
Luxuriant
Still
Works
Liable
Unlearned
Even
Public
Yards
Sprout
Going
Support
Dry
Sprouts
Men
Knowledge
Forest
Timber

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Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
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If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would ... [be] the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.
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He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to utter truth.
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The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.
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The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the heavens evenafter the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are apparent.
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The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindu, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich inward.
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I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.
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To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
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We have need to be earth-born as well as heaven-born, gegeneis, as was said of the Titans of old, or in a better sense than they.
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We live but a fraction of our lives.
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When a shadow flits across the landscape of the soul where is the substance?
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Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
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I say, break the law.
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I seem to have dodged all my days with one or two persons, and lived upon expectation,--as if the bud would surely blossom and soI am content to live.
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Our thoughts are epochs in our lives all else is but as a journal of the winds that blow while we are here.
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A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that surround it.
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Morning glory is the best name, it always refreshes me to see it.
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In all perception of the truth there is a divine ecstasy, an inexpressible delirium of joy, as when a youth embraces his betrothed virgin.
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When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.
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We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.
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