I do not know but it is too much to…

I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day’s devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.

Sourced, Life Without Principle
(1863)

Other Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Fire is the most tolerable third party. - View Quote Details on Fire is the most tolerable third party.
As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which is most correct. - View Quote Details on As for my own business, even that kind of surveying…
Any fool can make a rule
And any fool will mind it. - View Quote Details on Any fool can make a rule
And any fool will mind…
The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society! - View Quote Details on The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not…
Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on? — If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him… he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, — How sweet this crust is! - View Quote Details on Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but…
Sphere Music — Some sounds seem to reverberate along the plain, and then settle to earth again like dust; such are Noise, Discord, Jargon. But such only as spring heavenward, and I may catch from steeples and hilltops in their upward course, which are the more refined parts of the former, are the true sphere music — pure, unmixed music — in which no wail mingles. - View Quote Details on Sphere Music — Some sounds seem to reverberate along the…
Truly, Nature absorbed his attention, but I don’t think he cared much for what is called the beauties of nature; it was her way of working, her mystery, her economy in extravagance; he delighted to trace her footsteps toward their source…. He liked to feel that the pursuit was endless, with mystery at both ends of it…. - View Quote Details on Truly, Nature absorbed his attention, but I don’t think he…
Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. - View Quote Details on Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest…
Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now. - View Quote Details on Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed to…
His words also were as distinct and true to the ear as those of a great singer, and he had Tennyson ’s splendid gift in this, that he never went back on his tracks to pick up the fallen loops of a sentence as commonplace talkers do. He would hesitate for an instant now and then, waiting for the right word, or would pause with a pathetic patience to master the trouble in his chest, but when he was through the sentence was perfect and entire, lacking nothing, and the word was so purely one with the man that when I read his books now and then I do not hear my own voice within my reading but the voice I heard that day. - View Quote Details on His words also were as distinct and true to the…