We may well be ashamed to tell what things we…

We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial, — considering what one’s dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.

Sourced, Life Without Principle
(1863)

Other Henry David Thoreau Quotes

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. - View Quote Details on No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in…
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…
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. - View Quote Details on How vain it is to sit down to write when…
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison… the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. - View Quote Details on Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place…
And the cost of a thing it will be remembered is the amount of life it requires to be exchanged for it. - View Quote Details on And the cost of a thing it will be remembered…
The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I confess to having been slightly prejudiced against it in my very early days by the church and the Sabbath school, so that it seemed, before I read it, to be the yellowest book in the catalogue. Yet I early escaped from their meshes. It was hard to get the commentaries out of one’s head and taste its true flavor. — I think that Pilgrim’s Progress is the best sermon which has been preached from this text; almost all other sermons that I have heard, or heard of, have been but poor imitations of this. — It would be a poor story to be prejudiced against the Life of Christ because the book has been edited by Christians. - View Quote Details on The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I confess…
What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and, to some extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much. - View Quote Details on What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and…
Who looks in the sun will see no light else; but also he will see no shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the same, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul. - View Quote Details on Who looks in the sun will see no light else;…
I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the range of sight,
New earths and skies and seas around,
And in my day the sun doth pale his light. - View Quote Details on I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond…
The perception of beauty is a moral test. - View Quote Details on The perception of beauty is a moral test.