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Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Education

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In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Running, Dream
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.167, Penguin

The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Retirement, Leisure
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.33, Cosimo, Inc.

Education makes a straight ditch of a free meandering brook.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Brooks

I am still a learner, not a teacher, feeding somewhat omnivorously, browsing both stalk & leaves

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Teacher, Stalking
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.371, Penguin

I had a classmate who fitted for college by the lamps of a lighthouse, which was more light, we think, than the University afforded.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, College, Thinking
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Cape Cod (Annotated Edition)”, p.137, Jazzybee Verlag

We seem to have forgotten that the expression "a liberal education" originally meant among the Romans one worthy of free men; while the learning of trades and professions by which to get your livelihood merely, was considered worthy of slaves only. But taking a hint from the word, I would go a step further and say, that it is not the man of wealth and leisure simply, though devoted to art, or science, or literature, who, in a true sense, is liberally educated, but only the earnest and free man.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Art, Men
Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Uncommon Learning: Thoreau on Education”, p.63, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme,--a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection,--to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation,... and for these oversights successive generations have to pay.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, College, Division Of Labor
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.39, Graphic Arts Books

We boast of our system of education, but why stop at schoolmasters and schoolhouses? We are all schoolmasters, and our schoolhouse is the universe. To attend chiefly to the desk or schoolhouse while we neglect the scenery in which it is placed is absurd. If we do not look out we shall find our find schoolhouse standing in a cow-yard at last.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Yards, Looks
Henry David Thoreau, Joseph O. Valentine, Thoreau Society (2001). “Thoreau on Land: Nature's Canvas”, p.88, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Knowledge, Half
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.212, Courier Corporation

I was determined to know beans.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Teaching, Learning
1854 Walden, or Life in the Woods,'The Bean-Field'.

On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom of many an ancient philosopher.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Wise, Wisdom
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.103, Jazzybee Verlag

The child should have the advantage of ignorance as well as of knowledge, and is fortunate if he gets his share of neglect and exposure.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Children, Ignorance
Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Uncommon Learning: Thoreau on Education”, p.65, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the development of infant minds, where none already existed. It would be too cruel.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Children, Mind
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1692, Delphi Classics

Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Running, Father
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.38, Xist Publishing

I love man-kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead unkind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the last codicil and letter. They rule this world, and the living are but their executors. Such foundation too have our lectures and our sermons, commonly.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Hate, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.109, Delphi Classics

My eye is educated to discover anything on the ground, as chestnuts, etc. It is probably wholesomer to look at the ground much than at the heavens.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Eye, Heaven
Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861”, p.468, New York Review of Books

Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Block, Book
Henry David Thoreau (1906). “Journal: Dec. 1, 1853-Aug. 31, 1854”

Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Important, Tuition
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.39, Graphic Arts Books

We saw one school-house in our walk, and listened to the sounds which issued from it; but it appeared like a place where the process, not of enlightening, but of obfuscating the mind was going on, and the pupils received only so much light as could penetrate the shadow of the Catholic church.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, School, Light
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Yankee in Canada”, p.35, Graphic Arts Books

That excitement about Kossuth, consider how characteristic, but superficial, it was!--only another kind of politics or dancing. Men were making speeches to him all over the country, but each expressed only the thought, or the want of thought, of the multitude. No man stood on truth. They were merely banded together, as usual one leaning on another, and all together on nothing.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Country, Truth
Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.177, David M Gross

Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Boys, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.379, Penguin

Can there be any greater reproach than an idle learning? Learn to split wood, at least.

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

The schools begin with what they call the elements, and where do they end?

Henry David Thoreau
Education, School, Elements
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.369, Penguin

When the State wishes to endow an academy or university, it grants it a tract of forest land: one saw represents an academy, a gang, a university.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Land, Wish
Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.174, David M Gross

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

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