« All State Quotes · Henry David Thoreau's Page
State Quotes by 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 property, and so…
- Cast your whole vote, not a piece of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless when it conforms to a majority; but…
- Everything counts for gain when we are cosmically awake. Nothing counts, unless we are awake. No enjoyments last, no successes satisfy, no gains have meaning…
- As far back as I can remember I have unconsciously referred to the experiences of a previous state of existence.
- I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as…
- Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it…
- We have built for this world a family mansion, and the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's…
- Before the end of December, generally, they experience their first thawing. Those which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and quite unpalatable to the civilized…
- The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.
- Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit…
- I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know…
- My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts…
- The chief want, in every state that I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants.
- What we want is not mainly to colonize Nebraska with free men, but to colonize Massachusetts with free men-to be free ourselves. As the enterprise…
- For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a world, into which…
- The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw…
- Others -- as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders -- serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral…
- There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in…
- There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from…
- Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downwards through the mud and slush of opinion and tradition, and pride and prejudice, appearance…
- In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing…
- I confess, that practically speaking, when I have learneda man's real disposition, I have no hopes of changing it for the better or worse in…
- If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are paid for being…
More State Quotes
- A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state. — Aristotle
- The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication. — Aristotle
- Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind… — Aristotle
- The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life. — Aristotle
- Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in… — Aristotle
- Yet, so far from laboring to know the forbidden tree of worldly pleasures and its various fruits, man gives himself up to… — Johann Arndt
- Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say. — Wystan Hugh Auden
- The most important aspect of the relationship between the president and the secretary of state is that they both understand who is… — Dean Acheson
- To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment. — Jane Austen
- We cannot build foundations of a state without rule of law. — Mahmoud Abbas
- O my God, what must a soul be like when it is in this state! It longs to be all one tongue… — Teresa of Avila
- In a state of grace, the soul is like a well of limpid water, from which flow only streams of clearest crystal.… — Teresa of Avila