6 quotes
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East.
Walking (1862)
Most books belong to the house and streets only, and in the fields their leaves feel very thin.
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)
A poem is one undivided unimpeded expression fallen ripe into literature, and it is undividedly and unimpededly received by those for whom it was matured.
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)
My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read,
'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large
Down in the meadow, where is richer feed,
And will not mind to hit their proper targe.
Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.
Attributed Pearls of Thought (1881)