Quote

The state does not demand justice of its members, but thinks that it succeeds very well with the least degree of it, hardly more than rogues practice and so do the neighborhood and the family. What is commonly called Friendship even is only a little more honor among rogues.

Henry David Thoreau

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Even
State
Members
Commonly
Thinking
Family
Succeed
Neighborhood
Doe
Honor
Hardly
Littles
Among
Degree
States
Least
Thinks
Little
Called
Degrees
Wells
Justice
Friendship
Rogues
Well
Practice
Demand
Succeeds

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist. With the least inclination to be well, we should not be sick.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Nile,... the Rocky Mountains, the Himmaleh, and Mountains of the Moon, have a kind of personal importance in the annals of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
To be awake is to be completely alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and expect the time when a vision as broad shall overlook the same field as freely.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The only people who ever get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this country.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The only government that I recognize--and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army--is that power thatestablishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
In the love of narrow souls I make many short voyages but in vain-I find no sea room-but in great souls I sail before the wind without a watch, and never reach the shore.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Associate reverently, and as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Most men cry better than they speak. You get more nurture out of them by pinching than addressing them.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
All the events which make the annals of the nations are but the shadows of our private experiences.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
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