Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the development of infant minds, where none already existed. It… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To act collectively is according to the spirit of our institutions. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains itsmaxims.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Why should Canada, wild and unsettled as it is, impress us as an older country than the States, unless because her institutions… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I think of no news to tell you. It is a serene summer day here, all above the snow. The hens steal… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is such a thing as caste, even in the West; but it is comparatively faint; it is conservatism here. It says,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I love man-kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead unkind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind, so, one would say, where there is a lull… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not value any view of the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very largely and absorb… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defense, but the toughest son… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but they… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If ever I did a man any goodof course it was something exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I am… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wings, — The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“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… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
