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It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such.

Henry David Thoreau

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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Poet
Translator
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Whatever
Maintain
Society
Opposition
Government
Obedience
Find
Laws
Never
Meet
Men
Attitude
Law
Chance

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as the work of today is present, so some flitting perspectives and demi-experiencesof the life that is in nature are in time veritably future, or rather outside of time, perennial, young, divine, in the wind and rain which never die.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went.
Henry David Thoreau
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I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.
Henry David Thoreau
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If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?
Henry David Thoreau
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They take great pride in making their dinner cost much I take my pride in making my dinner cost so little.
Henry David Thoreau
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Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.
Henry David Thoreau
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Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances will avail.... It is a drama in which the parties have no part to act.
Henry David Thoreau
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Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.
Henry David Thoreau
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Lose the world, get lost in it, and find your soul.
Henry David Thoreau
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Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its opposite halves - sometimes split into quarters - which grind on each other. Not only individuals but states have thus a confirmed dyspepsia.
Henry David Thoreau
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Beside some philosophers of larger vision, Carlyle stands like an honest, half-despairing boy, grasping at some details only of their world systems.
Henry David Thoreau
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To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health.
Henry David Thoreau
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If it is the result of a pure love, there can be nothing sensual in marriage. Chastity is something positive, not negative. It isthe virtue of the married especially. All lusts or base pleasures must give place to loftier delights. They who meet as superior beings cannot perform the deeds of inferior ones.
Henry David Thoreau
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The man who does not betake himself at once and desperately to sawing is called a loafer, though he may be knocking at the doors of heaven all the while.
Henry David Thoreau
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Do what you love. Know your own bone gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have much to learn of the Indian, nothing of the missionary.
Henry David Thoreau
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Between whom there is hearty truth there is love.
Henry David Thoreau
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Two thousand summers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal tint, for they have carried their own serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them against the corrosion of time.
Henry David Thoreau
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If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.
Henry David Thoreau
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The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village day.
Henry David Thoreau