Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Criticism

• There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Criticism, Literature, Quiet

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.267, Xist Publishing

• To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Criticism, Steps

  Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.3, Hayes Barton Press

• No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Criticism, Analysis, Adequate

  Henry David Thoreau (1962). “The journal of Henry D. Thoreau”

• It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book. Any distinguished traveler who comes to our shores is likely to get more dinners and speeches of welcome than he can well dispose of, but the best books, if noticed at all, meet with coldness and suspicion, or, what is worse, gratuitous, off-hand criticism.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Reading, Hands

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.77, Simon and Schuster

• However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the lay, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Imagination, Criticism

• I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sorry, Apology, Men

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.128, Courier Corporation

• Our taste is too delicate and particular. It says nay to the poet's work, but never yea to his hope.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Poetry, Criticism, Taste

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1056, Delphi Classics

• Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophy, Past, Criticism

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.280, Simon and Schuster

• Since you are my readers, and I have not been much of a traveler, I will not talk about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the criticism.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Reading, Home, People

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.414, Penguin

• As they say in geology, time never fails, there is always enough of it, so I may say, criticism never fails.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Time, Criticism, May

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.53, Jazzybee Verlag

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