Henry David Thoreau Quotations: EDUCATION
The past is the canvass on which our idea is painted,—the dim prospectus of our future field. We are dreaming of what we are to do.—"The Service"
The poet or the artist never had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.—Walden
The poet says the proper study of mankind is man. I say study to forget all that—take wider views of the universe.—Journal, 2 April 1852
The purest science is still biographical.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The scholar is not apt to make his most familiar experience come gracefully to the aid of his expression.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher truth for the calluses on his palms.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The scholar might frequently emulate the propriety and emphasis of the farmer’s call to his team, and confess that if that were written it would surpass his labored sentences. Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month’s labor in the farmer’s almanac, to restore our tone and spirits. A sentence should read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The scholar requires hard and serious labor to give an impetus to his thought. He will learn to grasp the pen firmly so, and wield it gracefully and effectively, as an axe or a sword.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The scholar's and the farmers's work are strictly analogous. . . . He is doing like myself. My barn-yard is my journal.—Journal, 20 January 1852
The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.—Walden
