Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Writing - Page 2

To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the common sense,it contains only enduring and essential truth, the I and you, the here and there, the now

To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the common sense,it contains only enduring and essential truth, the I and you, the here and there, the now and then, being omitted. Either time or rare wisdom writes it.

Henry David Thoreau

Wisdom, Truth, Writing

Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.42, Xist Publishing

All men are really most attracted by the beauty of plain speech, and they even write in a florid style in imitation of this. Theyprefer to be misunderstood rather than to come short of its exuberance.

Henry David Thoreau

Beauty, Writing, Men

Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.516, Simon and Schuster

The scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher truth for the calluses on his palms. They give firmness to the sentence. Indeed, the mind never makes a great and successful effort, without a corresponding energy of the body.

Henry David Thoreau

Writing, Successful, Giving

Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.517, Simon and Schuster

Paper is cheap, and authors need not now erase one book before they write another. Instead of cultivating the earth for wheat andpotatoes, they cultivate literature, and fill a place in the Republic of Letters. Or they would fain write for fame merely, as others actually raise crops of grain to be distilled into brandy.

Henry David Thoreau

Book, Writing, Paper

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

We are often struck by the force and precision of style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, easily attain when required to make the effort. As if plainness and vigor and sincerity, the ornaments of style, were better learned on the farm and in the workshop than in the schools. The sentences written by such rude hands are nervous and tough, like hardened thongs, the sinews of the deer, or the roots of the pine.

Henry David Thoreau

School, Hard Work, Writing

Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.385, Modern Library

As for style of writing, if one has anything to say, it drops from him simply and directly, as a stone falls to the ground.

Henry David Thoreau

Fall, Writing, Style

1857 Letter to Daniel Ricketson, 18 Aug.

The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and expect the time when a vision as broad shall overlook the same field as freely.

Henry David Thoreau

Writing, Vision, Peers

Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.341, Princeton University Press

When I hear the hypercritical quarreling about grammar and style, the position of the particles, etc., etc., stretching or contracting every speaker to certain rules of theirs. I see that they forget that the first requisite and rule is that expression shall be vital and natural, as much as the voice of a brute or an interjection: first of all, mother tongue; and last of all, artificial or father tongue. Essentially your truest poetic sentence is as free and lawless as a lamb's bleat.

Henry David Thoreau

Mother, Father, Writing

Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.13, Heron Dance Press

Let no one think that I do not love the old ministers. They were, probably, the best men in their generation, and they deserve that their biographies should fill the pages of the town histories. If I could but hear the "glad tidings" of which they tell, and which, perchance, they heard, I might write in a worthier strain than this.

Henry David Thoreau

Writing, Men, Thinking

Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.48, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Letter-writing too often degenerates into a communicating of facts, and not of truths; of other men's deeds and not our thoughts.What are the convulsions of a planet, compared with the emotions of the soul? or the rising of a thousand suns, if that is not enlightened by a ray?

Henry David Thoreau

Communication, Writing, Men

Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Thoreau's Book of Quotations”, p.56, Courier Corporation

No doubt Carlyle has a propensity to exaggerate the heroic in history, that is, he creates you an ideal hero rather than another thing.... Yet what were history if he did not exaggerate it? How comes it that history never has to wait for facts, but for a man to write it? The ages may go on forgetting the facts never so long, he can remember two for every one forgotten. The musty records of history, like the catacombs, contain the perishable remains, but only in the breast of genius are embalmed the souls of heroes.

Henry David Thoreau

Hero, Writing, Men

Writing may be either the record of a deed or a deed. It is nobler when it is a deed.

Henry David Thoreau

Writing, Records, Deeds

What avail all your scholarly accomplishments and learning, compared with wisdom and manhood? To omit his other behavior, see whata work this comparatively unread and unlettered man wrote within six weeks. Where is our professor of belles-lettres, or of logic and rhetoric, who can write so well?

Henry David Thoreau

Education, Writing, Men

Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.67, David M Gross