Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Silence

• I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Music, Loneliness, Being Single

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.29, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• The silence sings. It is musical. I remember a night when it was audible. I heard the unspeakable.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Night, Silence, Musical

  Henry David Thoreau, Horace Elisha Scudder, Harrison Gray Otis Blake, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1898). “The writings of Henry David Thoreau”

• In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sad, Live Life, Silence

  Henry David Thoreau, Carl Hovde (1980). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.278, Princeton University Press

• Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Disappointment, Silence, Personality

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.312, Courier Corporation

• The most difficult thing to understand during conversation is silence.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Silence, Speech, Conversation

• Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment

  Henry David Thoreau

  Disappointment, Silence, Dull

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.392, Princeton University Press

• What can be expressed in words can be expressed in life.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Silence

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.357, Penguin

• I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Years, Silence, Twenties

  Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861”, p.17, New York Review of Books

• We falsely attribute to men a determined character - putting together all their yesterdays - and averaging them - we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is the silent poor indeed.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Family, Character, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2077, Delphi Classics

• No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Trust, Thinking, Echoes

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.16

• Pity the man who has a character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is silent poor indeed.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Family, Character, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2077, Delphi Classics

• The orator puts off his individuality, and is then most eloquent when most silent. He listens while he speaks, and is a hearer along with his audience.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Silence, Individuality, Speech

  Henry David Thoreau, John C. Broderick, Robert Sattelmeyer (1981). “Journal”, p.114, Princeton University Press

• As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Fall, Men, Silence

  Henry David Thoreau (1977). “The portable Thoreau”, Penguin

• As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on mankind.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Stars, Light, Imagination

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.412

• There are some things which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept silent about. To the highest communications we only lend a silent ear.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Communication, Men, Silence

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.416, Modern Library

• The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Silence, He Man

  Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.155, Courier Corporation

• Priests and physicians should never look one another in the face. They have no common ground, nor is there any to mediate betweenthem. When the one comes, the other goes. They could not come together without laughter, or a significant silence, for the one's profession is a satire on the other's, and either's success would be the other's failure.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Laughter, Doctors, Silence

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.197, Delphi Classics

• But it is rather derogatory that your dwelling-place should be only a neighborhood to a great city,--to live on an inclined plane.I do not like their cities and forts, with their morning and evening guns, and sails flapping in one's eye. I want a whole continent to breathe in, and a good deal of solitude and silence, such as all Wall Street cannot buy,--nor Broadway with its wooden pavement. I must live along the beach, on the southern shore, which looks directly out to sea,--and see what that great parade of water means, that dashes and roars, and has not yet wet me, as long as I have lived.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Beach, Morning, Wall

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.59, Jazzybee Verlag

• We communicate like the burrows of foxes, in silence and darkness, under ground. We are undermined by faith and love.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Faith, Communication, Silence

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1644, Delphi Classics

• Such were garrulous and noisy eras, which no longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent and melodious era is ever soundingand resounding in the ears of men.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Yield, History

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.392, Princeton University Press

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