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If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.
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
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
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Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
My actual life is a fact, in view of which I have no occasion to congratulate myself but for my faith and aspiration I have respect. It is from these that I speak.
Henry David Thoreau
Generally speaking, the political news, whether domestic or foreign, might be written today for the next ten years with sufficientaccuracy. Most revolutions in society have not power to interest, still less alarm us but tell me that our rivers are drying up, or the genus pine dying out in the country, and I might attend.
Henry David Thoreau
It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business.
Henry David Thoreau
Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
Henry David Thoreau
We could not help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man. His words and actions presume alwaysa crisis near at hand, but she is forever silent and unpretending.
Henry David Thoreau
We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defenses only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free.
Henry David Thoreau
An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.
Henry David Thoreau
Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go canoeing.
Henry David Thoreau
A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.
Henry David Thoreau
When a noble deed is done, who is likely to appreciate it? They who are noble themselves.
Henry David Thoreau
Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures.
Henry David Thoreau
It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such. It is the bog in our brains and bowels, the primitive vigor of Nature in us, that inspires that dream. I shall never find in the wilds of Labrador a greater wildness than in some recess of Concord.
Henry David Thoreau
There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography.
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
All nations love the same jests and tales, Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, and the same translated suffice for all.
Henry David Thoreau
I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
Henry David Thoreau
I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a Freedom and Culture merely civil, - to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.
Henry David Thoreau
The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not.
Henry David Thoreau
How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends, that we might go and meet their ideal cousins.
Henry David Thoreau
Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Henry David Thoreau
