States Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

All these sounds, the crowing of cocks, the baying of dogs, and the hum of insects at noon, are the evidence of…

— Henry David Thoreau

The chief want, in every state that I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants.

— Henry David Thoreau

When the State wishes to endow an academy or university, it grants it a tract of forest land: one saw represents an…

— Henry David Thoreau

As far back as I can remember I have unconsciously referred to the experiences of a previous state of existence.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as…

— Henry David Thoreau

Men cannot conceive of a state of things so fair that it cannot be realized.

— Henry David Thoreau

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.

— Henry David Thoreau

My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

In respect to religion and the healing art, all nations are still in a state of barbarism. In the most civilized countries…

— Henry David Thoreau

There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

The state does not demand justice of its members, but thinks that it succeeds very well with the least degree of it,…

— Henry David Thoreau

In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal;…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

Mine was, as it were, the connecting link between wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and others half-civilized, and…

— Henry David Thoreau

I was never molested by any person but those who represented the State. I had no lock nor bolt but for the…

— Henry David Thoreau

Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to…

— Henry David Thoreau

For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a…

— Henry David Thoreau

To one who habitually endeavors to contemplate the true state of things, the political state can hardly be said to have any…

— Henry David Thoreau

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

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

The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every State which…

— Henry David Thoreau

I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the…

— Henry David Thoreau

I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence…

— Henry David Thoreau

I am reminded by my journey how exceedingly new this country still is. You have only to travel for a few days…

— Henry David Thoreau

The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusettsis…

— Henry David Thoreau

We have built for this world a family mansion, and the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the…

— Henry David Thoreau

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its opposite halves - sometimes…

— Henry David Thoreau

To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always…

— Henry David Thoreau

Everything counts for gain when we are cosmically awake. Nothing counts, unless we are awake. No enjoyments last, no successes satisfy, no…

— Henry David Thoreau

Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed…

— Henry David Thoreau

“The gross feeder is a man in the larva state; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy or…

— Henry David Thoreau

I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it…

— Henry David Thoreau

It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We…

— Henry David Thoreau

Whoever can discern truth has received his commission from a higher source than the chiefest justice in the world who can discernonly…

— Henry David Thoreau

A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their conscience also, and…

— Henry David Thoreau

Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with that occupied by the bulk of our States,…

— Henry David Thoreau

That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the…

— Henry David Thoreau