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Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
Henry David Thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
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Environmentalist
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Only the defeated and deserters go to war.
Henry David Thoreau
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
Henry David Thoreau
Instead of water we got here a draught of beer, a lumberer's drink, which would acclimate and naturalize a man at once,-which would make him see green, and, if he slept, dream that he heard the wind sough among the pines.
Henry David Thoreau
Why should we leave it to Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our reading?
Henry David Thoreau
The question is whether you can bear freedom. At present the vast majority of men, whether white or black, require the discipline of labor which enslaves them for their own good.
Henry David Thoreau
It is tranquil people who accomplish much.
Henry David Thoreau
Can there be any greater reproach than an idle learning? Learn to split wood, at least.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.
Henry David Thoreau
The silence sings. It is musical. I remember a night when it was audible. I heard the unspeakable.
Henry David Thoreau
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
Henry David Thoreau
In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.
Henry David Thoreau
If we cannot sing of faith and triumph, we will sing our despair. We will be that kind of bird. There are day owls, and there arenight owls, and each is beautiful and even musical while about its business.
Henry David Thoreau
As far as our noblest hardwood forests are concerned, the animals, especially squirrels and jays, are our greatest and almost only benefactors. It is to them that we owe this gift. It is not in vain that the squirrels live in or about every forest tree, or hollow log, and every wall and heap of stones.
Henry David Thoreau
Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much.
Henry David Thoreau
The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.
Henry David Thoreau
I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.
Henry David Thoreau
We admire Chaucer for his sturdy English wit.... But though it is full of good sense and humanity, it is not transcendent poetry.For picturesque description of persons it is, perhaps, without a parallel in English poetry yet it is essentially humorous, as the loftiest genius never is.
Henry David Thoreau
As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on mankind.
Henry David Thoreau
Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.
Henry David Thoreau
A simple woman down in Tyngsborough, at whose house I once stopped to get a draught of water, when I said, recognizing the bucket, that I had stopped there nine years before for the same purpose, asked if I was not a traveler, supposing that I had been traveling ever since, and had now come round again.
Henry David Thoreau
