"We cannot write well or truly but..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
We cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“Philosophy, having crept clinging to the rocks so far, puts out its feelers many ways in vain.”
“I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beechtree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”
“Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them.”
More on Writing
“If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure - the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?”
“Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.”
“Already by 1900 I could boast I had written as many books as Moses.”
More on Authenticity
“I deal with painting as I deal with things, I paint a window just as I look out of a window. If an open window looks wrong in a picture, I draw the curtain and shut it, just as I would in my own room. In painting, as in life, you must act directly.”
“Integrity is not so much what we do as much as who we are.”
“I think there's something inherently dishonest in trying to go back and mess with the past.”