Famous Quotes

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Famous Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

• Above all, he possessed a hearty good-will to all men, and never wrote a cross or even careless... More
• Paper is cheap, and authors need not now erase one book before they write another. Instead of... More
• On the whole, Chaucer impresses us as greater than his reputation, and not a little like Homer... More
• Some men are judges, these August days, sitting on benches, even till the court rises; they sit... More
• Most people with whom I talk, men and women even of some originality and genius, have their... More
• It is said that a rogue does not look you in the face, neither does an honest man look at you as... More
• Friends and contemporaries should supply only the name and date, and leave it to posterity to... More
• Art is not tame, and Nature is not wild, in the ordinary sense. A perfect work of man’s art... More
• Being is the great explainer. More
• What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter,... More
• Almost any noble verse may be read, either as his elegy or eulogy, or be made the text of an... More
• So universal and widely related is any transcendent moral greatness, and so nearly identical with... More
• No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human... More
• A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all,... More
• I should say that he was an old-fashioned man in his respect for the Constitution, and his faith... More
• Think of him,—of his rare qualities!—such a man as it takes ages to make, and ages to... More
• When I think of him, and his six sons, and his son-in-law, not to enumerate the others, enlisted... More
• What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are... More
• Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and habit, and they cannot... More
• This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death,—the possibility of a man’s... More
• Insane!... Ask the tyrant who is his most dangerous foe, the sane man or the insane? More
• When some one remarked that, with the addition of a chaplain, it would have been a perfect... More
• Franklin,—Washington,—they were left off without dying; they were merely missing one day. More
• These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live. If this... More
• As for the herd of newspapers and magazines, I do not chance to know an editor in the country who... More
• I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in... More
• It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the... More
• You don’t know your testament when you see it. More
• He was one of that class of whom we hear a great deal, but, for the most part, see nothing at... More
• Prominent and influential editors, accustomed to deal with politicians, men of an infinitely... More
• He was not in the least a rhetorician, was not talking to Buncombe or his constituents anywhere,... More
• He did not go to the college called Harvard, good old Alma Mater as she is. He was not fed on the... More
• I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught... More
• Our foes are in our midst and all about us. There is hardly a house but is divided against... More
• We talk about a representative government; but what a monster of a government is that where the... More
• Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes were... More
• It was the fact that the tyrant must give place to him, or he to the tyrant, that distinguished... More
• Truth is his inspirer, and earnestness the polisher of his sentences. He could afford to lose his... More
• The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in... More
• What though he did not belong to your clique! Though you may not approve of his method or his... More
• He could not have been tried by a jury of his peers, because his peers did not exist. More
• Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be... More
• None but the like-minded can come plenipotentiary to our court. More
• The only free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee.... More
• I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject;... More
• He was a superior man. He did not value his bodily life in comparison with ideal things. He did... More
• The thoughtful man becomes a hermit in the thoroughfares of the marketplace. More
• The only government that I recognize—and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how... More
• He was a man of Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about his diet at your table,... More
• We ‘ve wholly forgotten how to die. But be sure you do die nevertheless. Do your work, and... More
• They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of... More
• We make needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take. More
• The same indignation that is said to have cleared the temple once will clear it again. The... More
• On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being... More
• High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first... More
• I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the... More
• When I reflect to what a cause this man devoted himself, and how religiously, and then reflect to... More
• The modern Christian is a man who has consented to say all the prayers in the liturgy, provided... More
• I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character,—his... More
• It is more manifest than ever that tyranny rules. I see this government to be effectually allied... More
• If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense... More
• The Republican Party does not perceive how many his failure will make to vote more correctly than... More
• The momentary charge at Balaklava, in obedience to a blundering command, proving what a perfect... More
• The slave-ship is on her way, crowded with its dying victims; new cargoes are being added in... More
• I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these... More
• I do not believe in erecting statues to those who still live in our hearts, whose bones have not... More
• A counterfeiting law-factory, standing half in a slave land and half in a free! What kind of laws... More
• The very fact that he had no rabble or troop of hirelings about him would alone distinguish him... More
• He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one... More
• I do not believe in lawyers, in that mode of attacking or defending a man, because you descend to... More
• We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our... More
• What have Massachusetts and the North sent a few sane representatives to Congress for, of late... More
• A church that can never have done with excommunicating Christ while it exists! Away with your... More
• “All is quiet at Harper’s Ferry,” say the journals. What is the character of that calm... More
• I think that for once the Sharp’s rifles and the revolvers were employed in a righteous cause. More
• One writer says that Brown’s peculiar monomania made him to be “dreaded by the Missourians as... More
• Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that... More
• It appears that I saw about a dozen plants which had accompanied man as far into the woods as... More
• The prevailing trees (I speak only of what I saw) on the east and west branches of the Penobscot... More
• The handsomest and most interesting flowers were the great purple orchises, rising ever and anon,... More
• It appears that in a forest like this the great majority of flowers, shrubs, and grasses are... More
• We saw many straggling white pines, commonly unsound trees, which had therefore been skipped by... More
• One wonders that the tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out to see what the trees mean... More
• We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads,—and... More
• A man shall perhaps rush by and trample down plants as high as his head, and cannot be said to... More
• Each humblest plant, or weed, as we call it, stands there to express some thought or mood of... More
• A man sees only what concerns him.... How much more, then, it requires different intentions of... More
• For beautiful variety no crop can be compared with this. Here is not merely the plain yellow of... More
• I am more interested in the rosy cheek than I am to know what particular diet the maiden is fed on. More
• It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves. How beautifully... More
• What meant the fathers by establishing this perfectly living institution before the... More
• Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall... More
• Our poets have sung of wine, the product of a foreign plant which commonly they never saw, as if... More
• When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and... More
• The autumnal change of our woods has not yet made a deep impression on our own literature yet.... More
• We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors.... More
• No annual training or muster of soldiery, no celebration with its scarfs and banners, could... More
• Already these brilliant trees throughout the street, without any more variety, are at least equal... More
• Heaven might be defined as the place which men avoid. More
• Show me two villages, one embowered in trees and blazing with all the glories of October, the... More

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