Typing Practice Paragraphs

Q: Is there a paragraph for typing practice PDF?

Your browser makes one. Finish the passage you want, press Print sheet under your result and pick Save as PDF. The sheet has the passage in large type, a line for a name and date, and a table to keep score by hand.

Type a paragraph of about 50, 100 or 200 words, untimed, to the last full stop.

Typing Practice Paragraphs: type this text. Name: ____________________ Date: __________

Type each word and press space after it. No timer. The run ends with the text. The rain began just after lunch. It was light at first, a soft tap on the roof, then it came down hard and fast. We shut the back door and put a pan under the old leak. By the time the tea was made, the street outside looked like a river.

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Date	Minutes	Words typed	Mistakes	Words per minute

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No timer: the run ends with the text, or when you press Finish. Words per minute is correct characters divided by five; accuracy is correct keystrokes out of all keystrokes.

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How it works

These typing practice paragraphs run from 30 words to 241. Each doubles as a sample typing test paragraph: set 60 s, 180 s or 300 s. Of the 60, 14 were written for this page and 46 come from Thoreau, Emerson and Muir.

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Pick a length, then a passage

The 16 quotations run 30 to 50 words, short paragraphs 48 to 63, medium 95 to 122 and long 185 to 241. The Passage menu lists all 60, easy ones first, each with its word count, writer and work. Every passage is printed in full under the tool. Want an easy paragraph for typing practice? Start with Rain on the Roof: 51 words, full stops and commas only. For a short paragraph for typing practice with more bite, try Quiet Desperation, 38 words of Thoreau.

How a run is scored

With No timer the run ends on the last full stop, or when you press Finish. 60 s, 180 s and 300 s are limits: the run stops when time is up or the passage ends. WPM is correct characters divided by five, per minute. Accuracy counts every keystroke, so a slip you fixed still shows. It is keyboard typing practice free of accounts and downloads: your bests stay in this browser.

Set a baseline on A Field of Water: seven even sentences, 505 keystrokes, only 4 commas. Run it daily and compare only those runs.
Read a passage in the list under the tool before you type it. A Window in the Ice hides a 94-word sentence, better met by eye first.
The quotations double as typing test quotes: 139 to 268 keystrokes each, about 42 to 80 seconds at 40 WPM.

Questions and answers

Is there a paragraph for typing practice PDF?

Your browser makes one. Finish the passage you want, press Print sheet under your result and pick Save as PDF. The sheet has the passage in large type, a line for a name and date, and a table to keep score by hand.

Are the quotations word for word?

Yes. All 46 borrowed passages, the 16 typing practice quotes included, were cut from Project Gutenberg editions and are exact runs of whole sentences. Only curly quotation marks became straight ones. Spelling stays as printed, so you meet "endeavors" in one passage and "Travelling" in another.

Why is my WPM lower here than on a word test?

Paragraphs add capitals, commas, semicolons and rare words, and each costs time. Expect a drop from your typing speed test score. Watch accuracy first: every slip costs at least two extra keystrokes, the Backspace and the retype.

All 60 paragraphs

Easy: plain words, full stops and commas only 14

A Sharp Knife (50 easy words) A sharp knife makes the work easy. A dull blade slips off the skin of a tomato and goes where you did not send it. A sharp one bites and stays on its line. Wash it by hand, dry it at once, and store it where it cannot knock about.
A Week of Weather (106 easy words) It was a week of every kind of weather. Monday was hot and still, and the dogs lay flat in the shade. On Tuesday the wind got up and took the washing off the line. It rained all of Wednesday, a steady rain that filled the water tank and turned the path to mud. Thursday was cold and bright. On Friday a storm came over the hill at noon, with hail as big as peas, and was gone in ten minutes. The weekend was mild and dull, and we were glad of it. We sat on the step with our tea and watched the road dry.
Bread and Butter (54 easy words) Fresh bread needs very little help. Cut a thick slice while the loaf is still warm, spread it with cold butter, and add a pinch of salt. The butter melts at the edges and stays firm in the middle. Eat it over the board and do not answer the phone until it is gone.

Show all 60 paragraphs (57 more)

Easy: plain words, full stops and commas only, continued

Fixing a Wobbly Chair (103 easy words) A chair that rocks can be fixed in an hour. Turn it over on a table and look at each joint. The loose one will move when you twist the leg. Pull it apart, scrape off the old glue with a knife, and wipe the wood clean. Put fresh glue in the hole and on the end of the rail, push them back, and bind the legs with a strap or a loop of rope. Wipe away the glue that comes out. Set the chair on a flat floor with a heavy book on the seat, and leave it until the next day.
Fog in the Valley (51 easy words) Fog filled the valley before dawn. The far hills were gone and the road ran into a wall of white. Cars crept past with their lamps on. By ten the sun had burned a hole in it, and by noon the sky was clear and the fields were bright and wet.
Hammer and Nail (49 easy words) Hold the nail near its head and tap it twice to set the point. Then move your hand away and swing from the elbow, not the wrist. Let the weight of the hammer do the work. If the nail bends, pull it out and start with a new one.
The Kitchen Drawer (48 easy words) Every home has one drawer that holds the odd things. Ours has a ball of string, two dead pens, a tape measure, a box of matches, a bike light, and a key that fits no lock we know. Nobody will throw the key away. It must open something.
The Morning Bus (53 easy words) The bus comes at ten past seven and it does not wait. The same few people stand at the stop each day. There is a man with a green flask and a girl who reads as she walks. Nobody speaks much. When the bus turns the corner, we all step forward at once.
The Night Train (109 easy words) The night train left at nine with a long, slow pull. We found our seats, put the bags on the rack, and shared out the bread and cheese. For an hour the towns went by as strings of yellow lights. Then the land went dark and there was only the sound of the wheels and the glass, cold under my hand. A child in the next row fell asleep on a folded coat. I meant to read, but the book stayed shut on my knee. When I woke, the sky was pale, the sea was on our left, and the guard was calling the name of the last stop.
Packing a Small Bag (54 easy words) Pack the bag the night before and then take a third of it out. You will wear the same two shirts anyway. Roll the soft things, put the shoes at the bottom, and keep your papers in the top pocket. A small bag is easy to lift, easy to carry, and hard to lose.
Pancakes on Sunday (112 easy words) On Sunday we make pancakes, and the first one always goes wrong. The pan is too cold, or too hot, or there is too much butter in it. It comes out pale on one side and torn on the other, and the cook eats it over the stove so that nobody can see. The second one is better. By the third, the heat is right and they come off the pan round and gold, one after the other. We stack them on a warm plate under a clean cloth. There is lemon and sugar on the table, and honey for those who want it, and nobody leaves until the plate is bare.
Rain on the Roof (51 easy words) The rain began just after lunch. It was light at first, a soft tap on the roof, then it came down hard and fast. We shut the back door and put a pan under the old leak. By the time the tea was made, the street outside looked like a river.
Soup on a Cold Day (54 easy words) Start with an onion, as most good soups do. Cook it slowly in butter until it is soft and sweet. Add a carrot, a potato, salt, and water to cover. Let it all simmer for half an hour, then mash it a little with a fork. Eat it hot, with bread, by a window.
Window Seat (56 easy words) Ask for a seat by the window if the trip is long. You can lean on the wall and sleep, and nobody climbs over you. When you wake there may be a coast far below, or a town lit up like a board game, or only cloud, flat and white to the edge of the sky.

Short paragraphs, about 50 words 10

A Cheerful Invitation (56 words) Thoreau: Walden Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did.
A Glorious Sierra Day (55 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.
After the Train (57 words) Thoreau: Walden Now that the cars are gone by and all the restless world with them, and the fishes in the pond no longer feel their rumbling, I am more alone than ever. For the rest of the long afternoon, perhaps, my meditations are interrupted only by the faint rattle of a carriage or team along the distant highway.
Bread and Tea (63 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra Wrote to my mother and a few friends, mountain hints to each. They seem as near as if within voice-reach or touch. The deeper the solitude the less the sense of loneliness, and the nearer our friends. Now bread and tea, fir bed and good-night to Carlo, a look at the sky lilies, and death sleep until the dawn of another Sierra to-morrow.
Earth's Eye (50 words) Thoreau: Walden A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows.
Inspector of Snow Storms (51 words) Thoreau: Walden For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow storms and rain storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility.
Moonlight Tree Shadows (55 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra Rose and crimson sunset, and soon after the stars appeared the moon rose in most impressive majesty over the top of Mount Dana. I sauntered up the meadow in the white light. The jet-black tree-shadows were so wonderfully distinct and substantial looking, I often stepped high in crossing them, taking them for black charred logs.
Society Is a Wave (51 words) Emerson: Self-Reliance Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them.
The Virtue of the Senses (60 words) Emerson: Prudence Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of appearances. It is the outmost action of the inward life. It is God taking thought for oxen. It moves matter after the laws of matter. It is content to seek health of body by complying with physical conditions, and health of mind by the laws of the intellect.
Whoso Would Be a Man (56 words) Emerson: Self-Reliance Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

Medium paragraphs, about 100 words 10

A Bird on Mount Hoffman (114 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra On Mount Hoffman I saw a curious dove-colored bird that seemed half woodpecker, half magpie, or crow. It screams something like a crow, but flies like a woodpecker, and has a long, straight bill, with which I saw it opening the cones of the mountain and white-barked pines. It seems to keep to the heights, though no doubt it comes down for shelter during winter, if not for food. So far as food is concerned, these bird-mountaineers, I guess, can glean nuts enough, even in winter, from the different kinds of conifers; for always there are a few that have been unable to fly out of the cones and remain for hungry winter gleaners.
A Field of Water (98 words) Thoreau: Walden A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate in its nature between land and sky. On land only the grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind. I see where the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of light. It is remarkable that we can look down on its surface. We shall, perhaps, look down thus on the surface of air at length, and mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it.
Apples in the Sunshine (122 words) Emerson: Intellect If you gather apples in the sunshine, or make hay, or hoe corn, and then retire within doors and shut your eyes and press them with your hand, you shall still see apples hanging in the bright light with boughs and leaves thereto, or the tasselled grass, or the corn-flags, and this for five or six hours afterwards. There lie the impressions on the retentive organ, though you knew it not. So lies the whole series of natural images with which your life has made you acquainted, in your memory, though you know it not; and a thrill of passion flashes light on their dark chamber, and the active power seizes instantly the fit image, as the word of its momentary thought.
Foxes on the Snow Crust (113 words) Thoreau: Walden Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow crust, in moonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other game, barking raggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as if laboring with some anxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light and to be dogs outright and run freely in the streets; for if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men? They seemed to me to be rudimental, burrowing men, still standing on their defence, awaiting their transformation. Sometimes one came near to my window, attracted by my light, barked a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated.
I Rejoice That There Are Owls (117 words) Thoreau: Walden I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there.
River Songs (99 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra I miss my river songs to-night. Here Hazel Creek at its topmost springs has a voice like a bird. The wind-tones in the great trees overhead are strangely impressive, all the more because not a leaf stirs below them. But it grows late, and I must to bed. The camp is silent; everybody asleep. It seems extravagant to spend hours so precious in sleep. "He giveth his beloved sleep." Pity the poor beloved needs it, weak, weary, forspent; oh, the pity of it, to sleep in the midst of eternal, beautiful motion instead of gazing forever, like the stars.
Travelling Is a Fool's Paradise (98 words) Emerson: Self-Reliance Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.
Trust Thyself (112 words) Emerson: Self-Reliance Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
Wasps in October (95 words) Thoreau: Walden The wasps came by thousands to my lodge in October, as to winter quarters, and settled on my windows within and on the walls over-head, sometimes deterring visitors from entering. Each morning, when they were numbed with cold, I swept some of them out, but I did not trouble myself much to get rid of them; I even felt complimented by their regarding my house as a desirable shelter. They never molested me seriously, though they bedded with me; and they gradually disappeared, into what crevices I do not know, avoiding winter and unspeakable cold.
Who Wouldn't Be a Mountaineer (97 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra From garden to garden, ridge to ridge, I drifted enchanted, now on my knees gazing into the face of a daisy, now climbing again and again among the purple and azure flowers of the hemlocks, now down into the treasuries of the snow, or gazing afar over domes and peaks, lakes and woods, and the billowy glaciated fields of the upper Tuolumne, and trying to sketch them. In the midst of such beauty, pierced with its rays, one's body is all one tingling palate. Who wouldn't be a mountaineer! Up here all the world's prizes seem nothing.

Long paragraphs, about 200 words 10

A Window in the Ice (228 words) Thoreau: Walden Then to my morning work. First I take an axe and pail and go in search of water, if that be not a dream. After a cold and snowy night it needed a divining rod to find it. Every winter the liquid and trembling surface of the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every light and shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half, so that it will support the heaviest teams, and perchance the snow covers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished from any level field. Like the marmots in the surrounding hills, it closes its eye-lids and becomes dormant for three months or more. Standing on the snow-covered plain, as if in a pasture amid the hills, I cut my way first through a foot of snow, and then a foot of ice, and open a window under my feet, where, kneeling to drink, I look down into the quiet parlor of the fishes, pervaded by a softened light as through a window of ground glass, with its bright sanded floor the same as in summer; there a perennial waveless serenity reigns as in the amber twilight sky, corresponding to the cool and even temperament of the inhabitants. Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Carlo the St. Bernard (213 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra I was fortunate in getting a fine St. Bernard dog for a companion. His master, a hunter with whom I was slightly acquainted, came to me as soon as he heard that I was going to spend the summer in the Sierra and begged me to take his favorite dog, Carlo, with me, for he feared that if he were compelled to stay all summer on the plains the fierce heat might be the death of him. "I think I can trust you to be kind to him," he said, "and I am sure he will be good to you. He knows all about the mountain animals, will guard the camp, assist in managing the sheep, and in every way be found able and faithful." Carlo knew we were talking about him, watched our faces, and listened so attentively that I fancied he understood us. Calling him by name, I asked him if he was willing to go with me. He looked me in the face with eyes expressing wonderful intelligence, then turned to his master, and after permission was given by a wave of the hand toward me and a farewell patting caress, he quietly followed me as if he perfectly understood all that had been said and had known me always.
The Douglas Squirrel (197 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra I like to watch the squirrels. There are two species here, the large California gray and the Douglas. The latter is the brightest of all the squirrels I have ever seen, a hot spark of life, making every tree tingle with his prickly toes, a condensed nugget of fresh mountain vigor and valor, as free from disease as a sunbeam. One cannot think of such an animal ever being weary or sick. He seems to think the mountains belong to him, and at first tried to drive away the whole flock of sheep as well as the shepherd and dogs. How he scolds, and what faces he makes, all eyes, teeth, and whiskers! If not so comically small, he would indeed be a dreadful fellow. I should like to know more about his bringing up, his life in the home knot-hole, as well as in the tree-tops, throughout all seasons. Strange that I have not yet found a nest full of young ones. The Douglas is nearly allied to the red squirrel of the Atlantic slope, and may have been distributed to this side of the continent by way of the great unbroken forests of the north.
Envy Is Ignorance (241 words) Emerson: Self-Reliance There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
The Fourth of July 1845 (222 words) Thoreau: Walden When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited the year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth every where.
I Left the Woods (196 words) Thoreau: Walden I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.
No Fixtures in Nature (209 words) Emerson: Circles There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid. Our culture is the predominance of an idea which draws after it this train of cities and institutions. Let us rise into another idea: they will disappear. The Greek sculpture is all melted away, as if it had been statues of ice; here and there a solitary figure or fragment remaining, as we see flecks and scraps of snow left in cold dells and mountain clefts in June and July. For the genius that created it creates now somewhat else. The Greek letters last a little longer, but are already passing under the same sentence and tumbling into the inevitable pit which the creation of new thought opens for all that is old. The new continents are built out of the ruins of an old planet; the new races fed out of the decomposition of the foregoing. New arts destroy the old. See the investment of capital in aqueducts made useless by hydraulics; fortifications, by gunpowder; roads and canals, by railways; sails, by steam; steam by electricity.
Strength Out of Weakness (192 words) Emerson: Compensation Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies.
Thunder Over the Forest (216 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra About noon, as usual, big bossy cumuli began to grow above the forest, and the rainstorm pouring from them is the most imposing I have yet seen. The silvery zigzag lightning lances are longer than usual, and the thunder gloriously impressive, keen, crashing, intensely concentrated, speaking with such tremendous energy it would seem that an entire mountain is being shattered at every stroke, but probably only a few trees are being shattered, many of which I have seen on my walks hereabouts strewing the ground. At last the clear ringing strokes are succeeded by deep low tones that grow gradually fainter as they roll afar into the recesses of the echoing mountains, where they seem to be welcomed home. Then another and another peal, or rather crashing, splintering stroke, follows in quick succession, perchance splitting some giant pine or fir from top to bottom into long rails and slivers, and scattering them to all points of the compass. Now comes the rain, with corresponding extravagant grandeur, covering the ground high and low with a sheet of flowing water, a transparent film fitted like a skin upon the rugged anatomy of the landscape, making the rocks glitter and glow, gathering in the ravines, flooding the streams, and making them shout and boom in reply to the thunder.
Time Is But the Stream (185 words) Thoreau: Walden Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.

Quotations, 30 to 50 words 16

A Different Drummer (33 words) Thoreau: Walden If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
A Foolish Consistency (39 words) Emerson: Self-Reliance A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.
A Morning Star (33 words) Thoreau: Walden The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
Advance Confidently (39 words) Thoreau: Walden I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Companionable Solitude (42 words) Thoreau: Walden I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
Give Me Truth (41 words) Thoreau: Walden Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.
Hitched to Everything (50 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell, and we feel like stopping to speak to the plants and animals as friendly fellow mountaineers.
I Went to the Woods (44 words) Thoreau: Walden I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
The Independence of Solitude (43 words) Emerson: Self-Reliance It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Insist on Yourself (36 words) Emerson: Self-Reliance Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.
Nothing Great Without Enthusiasm (39 words) Emerson: Circles Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and religion.
Quiet Desperation (38 words) Thoreau: Walden The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats.
The Range of Light (42 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra Here ends my forever memorable first High Sierra excursion. I have crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built; and rejoicing in its glory, I gladly, gratefully, hopefully pray I may see it again.
Three Chairs (42 words) Thoreau: Walden I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up.
To Have a Friend (30 words) Emerson: Friendship The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one. You shall not come nearer a man by getting into his house.
Up the Meadow at Sundown (32 words) Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra Sauntered up the meadow about sundown, out of sight of camp and sheep and all human mark, into the deep peace of the solemn old woods, everything glowing with Heaven's unquenchable enthusiasm.

How this list was compiled: 46 of the 60 passages are cut word for word from three books on Project Gutenberg. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (first published 1854), ebook 205: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/205. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series (first published 1841), ebook 2944: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2944. John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (first published 1911; the ebook follows a 1917 Houghton Mifflin printing whose copyright page reads 1911, John Muir, and 1916, Houghton Mifflin Company), ebook 32540: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32540. The Walden passages come from these chapters: Economy; Where I Lived, and What I Lived For; Sounds; Solitude; Visitors; The Ponds; House-Warming; Winter Animals; The Pond in Winter; Conclusion. The Emerson passages come from the essays Self-Reliance, Circles, Friendship, Prudence, Intellect and Compensation. The Muir passages come from chapters I, II, IV, V, VI, X and XI. Each passage is an unbroken run of whole sentences inside one paragraph, an exact run of the edition's text, and no sentence is used twice. One change was made: curly quotation marks and apostrophes became straight ones, so that they can be typed. Passages containing dashes, italics or accented letters were left out instead of being edited. Spelling and punctuation are the edition's, including Travelling, to-day and over-head. First publication years checked against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series; Muir's year against the book's own copyright page and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir. Muir's book is a diary, and every Muir passage here sits under a dated heading; the first entry in the book is dated June 3, 1869. Each name in the list gives the word count, then the writer and the work: the book for Thoreau and Muir, the essay for Emerson. The 14 passages in the group Easy were written for this page: letters, commas and full stops only, no word over nine letters. Words, keystrokes and sentences were counted. A keystroke is one character, spaces included, and a standard word is five keystrokes, the usual words-per-minute convention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute. All checked 2026-09-19. Licence: Thoreau, Emerson and Muir passages: public domain in the USA (Project Gutenberg ebooks 205, 2944 and 32540, each marked Public domain in the USA on its ebook page, checked 2026-09-19). The Easy paragraphs, the passage names, the notes and the counts are own work.