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That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
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
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Least
Politics
Freedom
Governs
Government
Governing
Best
Patriotic
People
Presidential
Discipline
Liberty
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have...but shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?
Henry David Thoreau
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Henry David Thoreau
A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.
Henry David Thoreau
One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature spontaneously keeps us well. Do not resist her!
Henry David Thoreau
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
Henry David Thoreau
You may raise enough money to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business.
Henry David Thoreau
As for me, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtlest imaginable essences, which would not stain the morning sky.
Henry David Thoreau
Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic.
Henry David Thoreau
The sea, vast and wild as it is, bears thus the waste and wrecks of human art to its remotest shore. There is no telling what it may not vomit up.
Henry David Thoreau
To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.
Henry David Thoreau
To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
Henry David Thoreau
It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. Why, nature is but another name for health.
Henry David Thoreau
They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself.
Henry David Thoreau
Where there is a lull in truth an institution springs up.
Henry David Thoreau
If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?
Henry David Thoreau
The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.
Henry David Thoreau
I find it, as ever, very unprofitable to have much to do with men. It is sowing the wind, but not reaping even the whirlwind onlyreaping an unprofitable calm and stagnation. Our conversation is a smooth, and civil, and never-ending speculation merely.
Henry David Thoreau
Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds.
Henry David Thoreau
