Steady labor with the hands, which engrosses the attention also, is unquestionably the best method of removing palaver and sentimentality out of one's style, both of speaking and writing.
Henry David ThoreauWe are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this respect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between theilliterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects. We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were.
Henry David ThoreauCarlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe.
Henry David ThoreauWhy should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.
Henry David ThoreauIf you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life.
Henry David ThoreauA true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrounds it. Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance.
Henry David Thoreau