Quotes about Insight
We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.
— Henry David Thoreau
Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.
— Henry David Thoreau
Truth strikes us from behind and in the dark, as well as from before and in broad daylight.
— Henry David Thoreau
Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
— Henry David Thoreau
As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole life. It is never isolated, or simply added as treasure to our stock. When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.
— Henry David Thoreau
Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit.
— Henry David Thoreau
We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads, - and then we can hardly see anything else.
— Henry David Thoreau
It is the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see.
— Henry David Thoreau
The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence.
— Henry David Thoreau
I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.
— Henry David Thoreau
The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring.
— Henry David Thoreau
With respect to wit, I learned that there was not much difference between the half and the whole.
— Henry David Thoreau