"The prosaic man sees things badly, or..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau

“Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”

“Critical acumen is exerted in vain to uncover the past; the past cannot be presented; we cannot know what we are not. But one veilhangs over past, present, and future, and it is the province of the historian to find out, not what was, but what is. Where a battle has been fought, you will find nothing but the bones of men and beasts; where a battle is being fought, there are hearts beating.”

“It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks of science, where they merely refit for this world, and no natural currents concur to individualize them.”

“I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface ofthings. We think that that is which appears to be.”

“The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates.”

“An individual, thinking himself injured, makes more noise than a State.”

“There are many lovely women, but no perfect ones.”

“Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.”

“The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity.”