Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Education is the transmission of civilization.

And last are the few whose delight is in meditation and understanding; who yearn not for goods, nor for victory, but for knowledge; who leave both market and battlefield to lose themselves in the quiet clarity of secluded thought; whose will is a light rather than a fire, whose haven is not power but truth: these are the men of wisdom, who stand aside unused by the world.

Culture is coded wisdom

Reading a book by someone you respect allows some of their brilliance to rub off on you.

Love is ever the beginning of knowledge as fire is of light.

There is no doubt that truth is to falsehood as light is to darkness; and so excellent a thing is truth that even when it touches humble and lowly matters, it still incomparably exceeds the uncertainty and falsehood in which great and elevated discourses are clothed; because even if falsehood be the fifth element of our minds, notwithstanding this, truth is the supreme nourishment of the higher intellects.

There are essentially two things that will make you wise -- the books you read and the people you meet.

A pedant holds more to instruct us with what he knows, than of what we are ignorant.

We venture to make the assertion that there is but one sin: IGNORANCE, and but one salvation: APPLIED KNOWLEDGE.

To pore upon a book, to seek the light of truth.

Truths kindle light for truths.

My wish for you... is that your skeptic-eclectic brain be flooded with the light of truth.

Truth travels slowly, but it will reach even you in time.

If we have a simple existence, we shall feel how happy and how fortunate we are. There are some people who are of the opinion that simplicity is almost tantamount to stupidity. But simplicity and stupidity are like the North Pole and the South Pole. One can be as simple as a child and, at the same time, one can have boundless knowledge, light and wisdom.

What is education? Properly speaking, there is no such thing as education. Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. Whatever the soul is like, it will have to be passed on somehow, consciously or unconsciously, and that transition may be called education. ... What we need is to have a culture before we hand it down. In other words, it is a truth, however sad and strange, that we cannot give what we have not got, and cannot teach to other people what we do not know ourselves.

Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.

If materialistic knowledge is power, it is not wisdom. It is but a blind force.

You can't discover light, by analyzing the dark.

Time is the wisest of all things that are; for it brings everything to light.

The price of light is less than the cost of darkness.

For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!' I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered. I liked white better,' I said. White!' he sneered. 'It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.' In which case it is no longer white,' said I. 'And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.' - Gandalf

It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.

We have all the light we need, we just need to put it in practice.

Intellect is a part of a good faith. Intellect is the light, the heart is the direction.