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Henry David Thoreau quotes
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(80)
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“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.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“That government is best which governs least”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“men have become the tools of their tools.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“It is never too late to give up our prejudices.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“We should be men first, and subjects afterward.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“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.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“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.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“Things do not change; we change.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.”
Henry David 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.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“I have . . . my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely unknown.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“True, there never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
“I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Life Without Principle
“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Life Without Principle
“The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Civil Disobedience
“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art.”
Henry David Thoreau
,
Walden
view all 80 quotes
Related topics
respect
life
simplicity
individualism
dreams
individuality
nature
solitude
government
truth
justice
change
freedom
self
democracy
right
evil
good
power
society
Related sources
Walden
(51)
Civil Disobedience
(22)
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
(4)
Life Without Principle
(2)
Walking
(1)
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