If I deny the authority of the State when it presents my tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In war, in some sense, lies the very genius of law. It is law creative and active; it is the first principle… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
This American government - what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.” — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I am a good horse to travel, but not from choice a roadster. The landscape-painter uses the figures of men to mark… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have heard of a minister, who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a time as he… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place I sympathize with one of my neighbors, an old man,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and "spare shirt," "leathern breeches" and "gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man may acquire a taste for wine or brandy, and so lose his love for water, but should we not pity… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
For my own part, I commonly attend more to nature than to man, but any affecting human event may blind our eyes… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
There is more religion in men's science, than there is science in their religion. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Most men would feel shame if caught preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of animal or vegetable food,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Men cannot conceive of a state of things so fair that it cannot be realized. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have hardly begun to live on Staten Island yet; but, like the man who, when forbidden to tread on English ground,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
No man who acts from a sense of duty ever puts the lesser duty above the greater. No man has the desire… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man. — 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
