The orator puts off his individuality, and is then most eloquent when most silent. He listens while he speaks, and is a hearer along with his audience.
Henry David ThoreauThe poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence.
Henry David ThoreauAge is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.
Henry David ThoreauVery few men can speak of Nature, for instance, with any truth. They overstep her modesty, somehow or other, and confer no favor.They do not speak a good word for her. Most cry better than they speak, and you can get more nature out of them by pinching than by addressing them. The surliness with which the woodchopper speaks of his woods, handling them as indifferently as his axe, is better than the mealy-mouthed enthusiasm of the lover of nature. Better that the primrose by the river's brim be a yellow primrose, and nothing more, than that it be something less.
Henry David Thoreau