“Read not the Times, read the Eternities.”

—  Henry David Thoreau

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Read not the Times, read the Eternities." by Henry David Thoreau?
Henry David Thoreau photo
Henry David Thoreau 385
1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862

Related quotes

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman
Werner Herzog photo

“Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read… if you don't read, you will never be a filmmaker.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director
Joseph Campbell photo

“Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth

Edwin Boring photo

“Half the time I read Hayek's The Sensory Order with amazement at the extent of his reading and comprehension … he is right … most of the time.”

Edwin Boring (1886–1968) American psychologist

Edwin Boring, "Elementist Going Up", The Scientific Monthly (March 1953), p. 183

Michael Foot photo

“Men of power have not time to read; yet men who do not read are unfit for power”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

On Benjamin Disraeli, in his own book, 'Debts of Honour
1980s

Ali Smith photo

“She likes to read, she reads all the time, and she prefers to be reading several things at once, she says it gives endless perspective and dimension.”

Ali Smith book Autumn

Source: Autumn

Henry David Thoreau photo

“Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Conventionalities are at length as bad as impurities. Even the facts of science may dust the mind by their dryness, unless they are in a sense effaced each morning, or rather rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living truth. Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Conventionalities are at length as bad as impurities. Even the facts of science may dust the mind by their dryness, unless they are in a sense effaced each morning, or rather rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living truth. Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven. Yes, every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and tear it, and to deepen the ruts, which, as in the streets of Pompeii, evince how much it has been used. How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate, whether we had better know them, — had better let their peddling-carts be driven, even at the slowest trot or walk, over that bridge of glorious span by which we trust to pass at last from the farthest brink of time to the nearest shore of eternity! Have we no culture, no refinement, — but skill only to live coarsely and serve the Devil? — to acquire a little worldly wealth, or fame, or liberty, and make a false show with it, as if we were all husk and shell, with no tender and living kernel to us? Shall our institutions be like those chestnut-burs which contain abortive nuts, perfect only to prick the fingers?

Marilyn Monroe photo

“I read poetry to save time.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer
Robert Maynard Hutchins photo

“If many great books seem unreadable and unintelligible … it may be because we have not for a long time learned to read by reading them. Great books teach people not only how to read them, but how to read all other books.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Related topics