Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Government frequently has a problem recognizing perception versus reality.

Nobody sees reality whole; we all need others to show us the parts of it that they see better than we do. Nobody sees reality with total accuracy; we all need others to correct our own vision.

With all of my work, it always takes a while for people to get it.

Don't express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not.

I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa

Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure

Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.

Just as a physicist has to examine the telescope and galvanometer with which he is working; has to get a clear conception of what he can attain with them, and how they may deceive him; so, too, it seemed to me necessary to investigate likewise the capabilities of our power of thought.

It is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obsesses the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into innumerable and inane controversies and fancies.

Each undervalues that part of the materials of thought with which he is not familiar.

For my part I think the Learned, and Unlearned Blockhead pretty equal; for 'tis all one to me, whether a Man talk Nonsense, or unintelligible Sense, I am diverted and edified alike by either; the one enjoys himself less, but suffers his Friends to do it more; the other enjoys himself and his own Humour enough, but will let no body else do it in his Company.

It's going to be years and years before most people realize how greatly he contributed to American music.

Everything looks more beautiful in retrospect.

What soon grows old? Gratitude.

Actually the royal family were very gracious and good to me. But I also found that the British establishment were never quite sure what to make of me. I was a Labour figure, but I'd come from a very middle-class background. In one sense I offended both traditional right and traditional left. But I thought that was no bad thing.

We rarely ever perceive others as being sensible, except for those who agree with us.

When we find that we are not liked, we assert that we are not understood; when probably the dislike we have excited proceeds from our being too fully comprehended.

... we do not admire what we cannot understand.

Since it is the Other within us who is old, it is natural that the revelation of our age should come to us from outside --from others. We do not accept it willingly.

I think we should enjoy our families and everyone that we love right now, each day.

How infinitely superior to our physical senses are those of the mind!

Conflict grows out of ignorance and suspicion. As we learn to know and appreciate those of various cultures, we come to appreciate them.

There are three kinds of minds: first those that attain insight and understanding of things by their own means, then those that recognize what is right when others explain it to them, and finally those that are capable of neither one nor the other.

Better readers are better thinkers.

You certainly can't tell anything from the microscopic structure of the brain whether the person was an idiot or a genius.