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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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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
States
Full
Split
Sometimes
Politics
Splits
Party
Quarters
Dyspepsia
Society
Parties
Halves
Half
Opposite
Gravel
Individual
Opposites
Grit
Political
Individuals
Confirmed
Two
Thus
Grind

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I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
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So long as a man is faithful to himself, everything is in his favor, government, society, the very sun, moon, and stars.
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I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.
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Literary gentlemen, editors, and critics think that they know how to write, because they have studied grammar and rhetoric but they are egregiously mistaken. The art of composition is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an infinitely greater force behind them.
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Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.
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Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towardsrecognizing and organizing the rights of man?
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Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food
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If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?
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True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.
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Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savagestands on the unelastic plank of famine.
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To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done,and I trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the detriment of my domestic arrangements.
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A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
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Let go of the past and live the future . . . Live the life you imagined.
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In 1848, Thoreau went to jail for refusing, as a protest against the Mexican war, to pay his poll tax. When RW Emerson came to bail him out, Emerson said, 'Henry, what are you doing in there?' Thoreau quietly replied, 'Ralph, what are you doing out there?'
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One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors for to dwell long upon them is to add to the offense, and repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by somewhat better, and which is as free and original as if they had not been.
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As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.
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A man can suffocate on courtesy.
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Keep up the fires of thought, and all will go well.
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Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures.
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The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
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