Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Science

• What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

• There is more religion in men's science, than there is science in their religion.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Men, Religion

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.71, Delphi Classics

• The universe is wider than our views of it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Views, Space

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.185, Simon and Schuster

• Men have become the tools of their tools.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Witty, Work, Humorous

  1854 Walden, or Life in the Woods,'Economy'.

• If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Science, Men

  "Life Without Principle" (1863)

• Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Men, Philosopher

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.77, BookBaby

• I should say that the useful results of science had accumulated, but that there had been no accumulation of knowledge, strictly speaking, for posterity; for knowledge is to be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can interpret another's experience only by his own.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  "Journeys, Adventures & Life in Harmony with Nature".

• Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Nature, Science

  Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.221, Courier Corporation

• The birds I heard today, which, fortunately, did not come within the scope of my science, sang as freshly as if it had been the first morning of creation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Morning, Science

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Early Spring in Massachusetts: From the Journal of Henry David Thoreau”, p.37, Library of Alexandria

• A man receives only what he is ready to receive... The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest of what he has observed, he does not observe.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Science, Men

• Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Summer, Believe, Science

  Michael Benjamin Berger, Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Thoreau's Late Career and The Dispersion of Seeds: The Saunterer's Synoptic Vision”, p.126, Camden House

• Observation is so wide awake, and facts are being so rapidly added to the sum of human experience, that it appears as if the theorizer would always be in arrears, and were doomed forever to arrive at imperfect conclusion; but the power to perceive a law is equally rare in all ages of the world, and depends but little on the number of facts observed.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Law, Numbers

  Henry David Thoreau, Eva Mae Burkett, Joyce S. Steward (1989). “Thoreau on writing”, Univ Pub Assoc

• The process of discovery is very simple. An unwearied and systematic application of known laws to nature, causes the unknown to reveal themselves. Almost any mode of observation will be successful at last, for what is most wanted is method.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Success, Knowledge, Science

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.271, Delphi Classics

• The eye which can appreciate the naked and absolute beauty of a scientific truth is far more rare than that which is attracted by a moral one.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Appreciation, Eye, Science

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.270, Delphi Classics

• When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Technology, Gossip

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.221, Graphic Arts Books

• He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behaviour as well as application.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Men, Doe

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.271, Delphi Classics

• You can hardly convince a man of error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grand-children may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more, to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Children, Science, Reflection

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Journeys, Adventures & Life in Harmony with Nature – 6 Book Collection (Illustrated): Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada & Canoeing in the Wilderness - North American Highlands Series”, p.47, e-artnow

• If words were invented to conceal thought, newspapers are a great improvement of a bad invention

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Improvement, Invention

• Our science, so called, is always more barren and mixed with error than our sympathies.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Errors, Barren

  Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Material Faith: Thoreau on Science”, p.95, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• What are the libraries of science but files of newspapers?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Library, Newspapers

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.669, Modern Library

• What do the botanists know? Our lives should go between the lichen and the bark. The eye may see for the hand, but not for the mind. We are still being born, and have as yet but a dim vision of sea and land, sun, moon, and stars, and shall not see clearly till after nine days at least.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Stars, Eye

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.286, Delphi Classics

• It will be seen that we contemplate a time when man's will shall be law to the physical world, and he shall no longer be deterredby such abstractions as time and space, height and depth, weight and hardness, but shall indeed be the lord of creation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Men, Power

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Miscellanies (Annotated Edition)”, p.23, Jazzybee Verlag

• It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Discovery, Law

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.362, Princeton University Press

• What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life! Indeed, the unchallenged bravery which these studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the warrior.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Warrior, Science

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.31, Penguin

• The next day the Indian told me their name for this light,--artoosoq',--and on my inquiring concerning the will-o'-the-wisp, and the like phenomena, he said that his "folks" sometimes saw fires passing along at various heights, even as high as the trees, and making a noise. I was prepared after this to hear of the most startling and unimagined phenomena, witnessed by "his folks"; they are abroad at all hours and seasons in scenes so unfrequented by white men. Nature must have made a thousand revelations to them which are still secrets to us.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Science, Men

You May Also Like:

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Walt Whitman

Margaret Fuller

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Leo Tolstoy

Herman Melville

Mahatma Gandhi