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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
Diarist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Matter
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Never
Army
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All expression of truth does at length take this deep ethical form.
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I was awakened at midnight by some heavy, low-flying bird, probably a loon, flapping by close over my head, along the shore. So, turning the other side of my half-clad body to the fire, I sought slumber again.
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Who is old enough to have learned from experience?
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Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit.
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But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the severest satire.... The greater the genius, the keener the edge of the satire.
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It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
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Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and Spring.
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It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village to make any progress between his door and his gate.
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For one that comes with a pencil to sketch or sing, a thousand come with an axe or rifle. What a coarse and imperfect use Indiansand hunters make of nature! No wonder that their race is so soon exterminated.
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While some men believe in the infinite, some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.
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On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.
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I have no time to be in a hurry.
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For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labour of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.
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It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always. The conscience really does not, and ought not to monopolizethe whole of our lives, any more than the heart or the head. It is as liable to disease as any other part.
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Many have believed that Walden reached quite through to the other side of the globe.
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I have no designs on society, or nature, or God. I am simply what I am, or I begin to be that. I live in the present. I only remember the past, and anticipate the future. I love to live.
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I am a happy camper so I guess I’m doing something right. Happiness is like a butterfly the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
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Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God's property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.
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The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
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Such were garrulous and noisy eras, which no longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent and melodious era is ever soundingand resounding in the ears of men.
Henry David Thoreau