Henry David Thoreau Quotations: READING, WRITING & WRITERS
It is wise to write on many subjects, to try many themes, that so you may find the right and inspiring one.—Journal, 4 September 1851
It makes no odds into what seeming deserts the poet is born. Though all his neighbors pronounce it a Sahara, it will be a paradise to him; for the desert which we see is the result of the barrenness of our experience.—Journal, 6 May 1854
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 write in a florid style only because they would match the simple beauties of the plainest speech. They prefer to be misunderstood, rather than come short of its exuberance.—Journal, 23 March 1842
Most poems, like the fruits, are sweetest toward the blossom end.—Journal, 23 August 1853
Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
My pen is a lever which, in proportion as the near end stirs me further within, the further end reaches to a greater depth in the reader.—Journal, 4 August 1841
My work is writing, and I do not hesitate, though I know that no subject is too trivial for me, tried by ordinary standards; for, ye fools, the theme is nothing, the life is everything.—Journal, 18 October 1856
No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions.' It is indeed all that we do not know.—Journal, January 1840
