“Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free-trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Others -- as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders -- serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely… — 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
For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is… — 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