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When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.

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
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Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Clash
Conscience
Laws
Follow
Law
Must
Men

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The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well as its essence.
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Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference.
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What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.
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The object of love expands and grows before us to eternity, until it includes all that is lovely, and we become all that can love.
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You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.
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There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the world over, living on anticipation.
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A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government.
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The perception of beauty is a moral test.
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Real power is measured by how much you can let things be.
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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.
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If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.
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The world rests on principles.
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Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
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I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence of men's beginning to redeem themselves.
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You never gain something but that you lose something.
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All sensuality is one, though it takes many forms all purity is one. It is the same whether a man eat, or drink, or cohabit, or sleep sensually. They are but one appetite, and we only need to see a person do any one of these things to know how great a sensualist he is. The impure can neither stand nor sit with purity.
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