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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
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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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Naturalist
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Government
Recognize
Matter
Matters
Never
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Justice
Small
Establishes
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Injustice
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
My neighbors tell me of their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilities they met at the dinner-table but I am no more interested in such things than in the contents of the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about costume and manners chiefly but a goose is a goose still, dress it as you will.
Henry David Thoreau
Heaven is not one of your fertile Ohio bottoms, you may depend on it.
Henry David Thoreau
The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact.
Henry David Thoreau
Let your condiments be in the condition of your senses.
Henry David Thoreau
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
Henry David Thoreau
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Henry David Thoreau
I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.
Henry David Thoreau
I have travelled a good deal in Concord.
Henry David Thoreau
You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.
Henry David Thoreau
How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?
Henry David Thoreau
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
If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.
Henry David Thoreau
The gold-digger is the enemy of the honest laborer, whatever checks and compensations there may be. It is not enough to tell me that you worked hard to get your gold. So does the Devil work hard. The way of transgressors may be hard in many respects.
Henry David Thoreau
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel.
Henry David Thoreau
I see less difference between a city and a swamp than formerly.
Henry David Thoreau
Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love and in proportion to our truthfulness and confidence in one another, our lives are divine and miraculous, and answer to our ideal. . . . Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.
Henry David Thoreau
The dry grasses are not dead for me. A beautiful form has as much life at one season as another.
Henry David Thoreau
I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.
Henry David Thoreau
How many things are now at loose ends! Who knows which way the wind will blow tomorrow?
Henry David Thoreau
See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
Henry David Thoreau
