Quote

All that are printed and bound are not books they do not necessarily belong to letters, but are oftener to be ranked with the other luxuries and appendages of civilized life. Base wares are palmed off under a thousand disguises.

Henry David Thoreau

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Life
Luxury
Disguises
Bounds
Luxuries
Entertainment
Printed
Necessarily
Disguise
Letters
Base
Appendages
Thousand
Civilized
Wares
Books
Bound
Ranked
Book
Belong
Oftener

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Those who work much do not work hard.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We do not enjoy poetry unless we know it to be poetry.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Even the facts of science may dust the mind by their dryness, unless they are ... rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living truth. Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Love is the profoundest of secrets. Divulged, even to the beloved, it is no longer Love. As if it were merely I that loved you. When love ceases, then it is divulged.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Translate a book a dozen times from one language to another, and what becomes of its style? Most books would be worn out and disappear in this ordeal. The pen which wrote it is soon destroyed, but the poem survives.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Life is so short that it is not wise to take roundabout ways, nor can we spend much time in waiting.... We have not got half-way to dawn yet.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We often love to think now of the life of men on beaches,--at least in midsummer, when the weather is serene their sunny lives onthe sand, amid the beach-grass and bayberries, their companion a cow, their wealth a jag of driftwood or a few beach plums, and their music the surf and the peep of the beech-bird.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
WE begin to die not in our sense or extremities, but in our divine faculties.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It will always be found that one flourishing institution exists and battens on another mouldering one. The Present itself is parasitic to this extent.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We should endeavor practically in our lives to correct all the defects which our imagination detects.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
What is called common sense is excellent in its department, and as invaluable as the virtue of conformity in the army and navy,--for there must be subordination,--but uncommon sense, that sense which is common only to the wisest, is as much more excellent as it is more rare.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Impulse is, after all, the best linguist its logic, if not conformable to Aristotle, cannot fail to be most convincing.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
That grand old poem called Winter
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We are superior to the joy we experience.
Henry David Thoreau