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Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.
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
Communism
Libertarian
Enterprise
Liberty
Government
Way
Furthered
Never
Alacrity
Libertarianism
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.
Henry David Thoreau
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
Henry David Thoreau
You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.
Henry David Thoreau
Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.
Henry David Thoreau
Like speaks to like only labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.
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
There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.
Henry David Thoreau
If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates a rottenness at the foundation of our community.
Henry David Thoreau
I make myself rich by making my wants few.
Henry David Thoreau
Those who work much do not work hard.
Henry David Thoreau
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
Henry David Thoreau
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.
Henry David Thoreau
There may be an excess of cultivation as well as of anything else, until civilization becomes pathetic. A highly cultivated man,--all whose bones can be bent! whose heaven-born virtues are but good manners!
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
Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.
Henry David Thoreau
We make needless ado about capital punishment,--taking lives, when there is no life to take.
Henry David Thoreau
I fear that I have not got much to say about Canada, not having seen much what I got by going to Canada was a cold.
Henry David Thoreau
If however the law is so promulgated that it of necessity makes you an agent of injustices against another, then I say to you ... break the law.
Henry David Thoreau
If all were as it seems, and men made the elements their servants for noble ends!
Henry David Thoreau
Be it life or death, we crave only reality.
Henry David Thoreau
