Henry David Thoreau Quotations: READING, WRITING & WRITERS
In the last stage of civilization, Poetry, Religion and Philosophy will be one.—Journal, 17 December 1837
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat–Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions.—Walden
It is enough if I have pleased myself with writing—I am then sure of an audience.—Journal, 24 March 1842
It is fatal to the writer to be too much possessed by his thought. Things must lie a little remote to be described.—Journal, 11 November 1851
It is not all books that are as dull as their readers.—Walden
It is not easy to write in a journal what interests us at any time, because to write it is not what interests us.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book. Any distinguished traveler who comes to our shores is likely to get more dinners and speeches of welcome than he can well dispose of, but the best books, if noticed at all, meet with coldness and suspicion, or, what is worse, gratuitous, off-hand criticism.—"Thomas Carlyle and His Works"
It is the imagination of poets which puts those brave speeches into the mouths of their heroes.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
It is vain to try to write unless you feel strong in the knees.—Journal, 9 August 1841
