Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Knowledge

• There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Courage, Fall, Learning

  Walden ch. 1 (1854)

• I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Success

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.202, Penguin

• What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
  And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Confidence, Lying

  Attributed in "The Life You Were Born to Live : A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose" by Dan Millman, (p. xi), 1995.

• No human being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Learning, Knowledge

  Henry David Thoreau, Linda Corrente (1984). “Henry David Thoreau's Walden”, Barrons Educational Series Incorporated

• True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Friendship, Best Friend, Ignorance

  Henry David Thoreau (2001). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.182, Courier Corporation

• Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspiration, Knowledge, Light

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.419, Simon and Schuster

• Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Thinking, Eggs

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.73, Courier Corporation

• I should say that the useful results of science had accumulated, but that there had been no accumulation of knowledge, strictly speaking, for posterity; for knowledge is to be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can interpret another's experience only by his own.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  "Journeys, Adventures & Life in Harmony with Nature".

• The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Men, Support

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.41, Courier Corporation

• He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Knowledge, Men

  Henry David Thoreau, Michael McCurdy, Terry Tempest Williams (2010). “Walden”, p.118, Shambhala Publications

• The process of discovery is very simple. An unwearied and systematic application of known laws to nature, causes the unknown to reveal themselves. Almost any mode of observation will be successful at last, for what is most wanted is method.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Success, Knowledge, Science

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.271, Delphi Classics

• All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Learning, Knowledge

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.57, Courier Corporation

• We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Education, Knowledge, Half

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.212, Courier Corporation

• Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Knowledge, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.90, Xist Publishing

• Such is always the pursuit of knowledge. The celestial fruits, the golden apples of the Hesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred-headed dragon which never sleeps, so that it is an Herculean labor to pluck them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Sleep, Dragons

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.216, Simon and Schuster

• The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secrets of things.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Secret, Rift

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.50, BookBaby

• Since all things are good, men fail at last to distinguish which is the bane and which the antidote.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Men, Evil

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.197, Delphi Classics

• What we need to know in any case is very simple.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Knowledge, Simple

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.90, Xist Publishing

• There is a chasm between knowledge and ignorance which the arches of science can never span.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Science

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.68, Xist Publishing

• Always the laws of light are the same, but the modes and degrees of seeing vary.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Light, Sight

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.126, Delphi Classics

• Long enough I had heard of irrelevant things; now at length I was glad to make acquaintance with the light that dwells in rotten wood. Where is all your knowledge gone to? It evaporates completely, for it has no depth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Science, Light

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.621, Delphi Classics

• Give me a sentence which no intelligence can understand. There must be a kind of life and palpitation to it, and under its words akind of blood must circulate forever.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Blood, Giving

• The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sympathy, Knowledge, Intelligence

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.361, Simon and Schuster

• There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky knolwedge, Grammatica parda, tawny grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived from that same leopard to which I have referred.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Mother, Children, Knowledge

• While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Brain, Potatoes

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.331, Penguin

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