Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man?... We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.
Henry David ThoreauIf you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are paid for being something less than a man. The state does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe.
Henry David ThoreauI want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse.
Henry David ThoreauMost men cry better than they speak. You get more nurture out of them by pinching than addressing them.
Henry David Thoreau