Henry David Thoreau Quotations: EDUCATION
It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot know in any higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenely and with impunity in the face of the sun: Ὡς τὶ νοῶν, οὐ κεῖνον νοήσεις,—“You will not perceive that, as perceiving a particular thing,” say the Chaldean Oracles.—"Walking"
It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women.—Walden
It is with science as with ethics,—we cannot know truth by contrivance and method; the Baconian is as false as any other, and with all the helps of machinery and the arts, the most scientific will still be the healthiest and friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian wisdom.—"Natural History of Massachusetts"
It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from human lips;—not be represented on canvas and marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.—Walden
Knowledge can be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can interpret another’s experience only by his own.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Knowledge does not come to us by details but by lieferungs from the gods.—Journal, 7 July 1851
Language is the most perfect work of art in the world. The chisel of a thousand years retouches it.—Journal, 27 July 1840
Many college text-books which were a weariness and a stumbling-block when studied, I have since read a little in with pleasure and profit.—Journal, 19 February 1854
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
My desire for knowledge is intermittent, but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence.—"Walking"
