We cannot put a noose around another man's neck without first hanging ourselves. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The journalists think that they cannot say too much in favor of such "improvements" in husbandry; it is a safe theme, like… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nothing more strikingly betrays the credulity of mankind than medicine. Quackery is a thing universal, and universally successful. In this case it… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body in a sheltered place; but man, having discovered fire, boxes… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Since all things are good, men fail at last to distinguish which is the bane and which the antidote. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; that is, her scenes must be associated with humane affections, such as… — 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
Life consists with Wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would ... [be] the definition of a peaceable revolution,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The mason asks but a narrow shelf to spring his brick from; man requires only an infinitely narrower one to spring his… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they… — 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
