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Law Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

86 Law quotes by Henry David Thoreau

All Law quotes Henry David Thoreau’s page

A broken law can feel unfair, so the quotes say it’s okay to resist when a rule hurts others. They compare human rules to natural forces, urging us to respect what is right more than just the written law. They also note that progress follows the law of time, like a river flowing onward.

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Law never made men a whit more just.

Henry David Thoreau

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I say, break the law.

Henry David Thoreau

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It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

Henry David Thoreau

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The highest law gives a thing to him who can use it.

Henry David Thoreau

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Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them.

Henry David Thoreau

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Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them?

Henry David Thoreau

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The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

Henry David Thoreau

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Simplicity is the law of nature for men as well as for flowers.

Henry David Thoreau

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To be right is more honorable than to be law abiding.

Henry David Thoreau

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It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for law, so much as a respect for right.

Henry David Thoreau

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If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another,…

Henry David Thoreau

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When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.

Henry David Thoreau

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There is a higher law affecting our relation to pines as well as to men. A pine cut down, a dead pine,…

Henry David Thoreau

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Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. It is as common as life.

Henry David Thoreau

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The man who takes the liberty to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation to the lawmaker.

Henry David Thoreau

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A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. The parties to it yield implicitly to the guidance of their love,…

Henry David Thoreau

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It behooves every man to see that his influence is on the side of justice, and let the courts make their own…

Henry David Thoreau

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Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily…

Henry David Thoreau

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I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What…

Henry David Thoreau

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The improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not…

Henry David Thoreau

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Why the jailer does not leave open his prison doors,--why the judge does not dismiss his case,--why the preacher does not dismisshis…

Henry David Thoreau

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At present the globe goes with a shattered constitution in its orbit… No doubt the simple powers of nature, properly directed by…

Henry David Thoreau

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The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature.…

Henry David Thoreau

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How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a…

Henry David Thoreau

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I would remind my countrymen, that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour. No…

Henry David Thoreau

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It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude…

Henry David Thoreau

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“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we…

Henry David Thoreau

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The Man of Genius may at the same time be, indeed is commonly, an Artist, but the two are not to be…

Henry David Thoreau

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In 1694 a law was passed "that every settler who deserted a town for fear of the Indians should forfeit all his…

Henry David Thoreau

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“Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make…

Henry David Thoreau

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Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man…

Henry David Thoreau

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Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,--that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses…

Henry David Thoreau

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I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit…

Henry David Thoreau

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Observation is so wide awake, and facts are being so rapidly added to the sum of human experience, that it appears as…

Henry David Thoreau

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Always the laws of light are the same, but the modes and degrees of seeing vary.

Henry David Thoreau

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What wisdom, what warning can prevail against gladness? There is no law so strong that a little gladness may not transgress.

Henry David Thoreau

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“I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law,…

Henry David Thoreau

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Anyone in a free society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the law.

Henry David Thoreau

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Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we…

Henry David Thoreau

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It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws.

Henry David Thoreau

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If ever I did a man any goodof course it was something exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I am…

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Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

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“Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wings, — The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that…

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I am not afraid of praise, for I have practiced it on myself.

Henry David Thoreau

“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and…

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“This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of…

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As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may…

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A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed.

Henry David Thoreau

In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the…

Henry David Thoreau

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

Henry David Thoreau

The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel.

Henry David Thoreau

Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.

Henry David Thoreau

The lumberers rarely trouble themselves to put out their fires, such is the dampness of the primitive forest; and this is one cause, no…

Henry David Thoreau

“When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to…

Henry David Thoreau

Wealth is measured by the level of experience in all aspects of life

Henry David Thoreau