Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplicity, simplicity. Walden, `Where I Lived, and What I Lived For', 1854

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. Walden, `Economy', 1854

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all. I found it invariably true, the poorer I am the richer I am.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. "Conclusion" to Walden

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. Slavery in Massachusetts

He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them in pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist. Civil Disobedience

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 in office. from Life without Principle

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? from "Economy" in Walden

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure... But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at one no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.

Civil Disobedience

In the streets and in society I am almost invariably cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean. No amount of gold or respectability would in the least redeem it,-- dining with the Governor or a member of Congress!! But alone in the distant woods or fields, in unpretending sprout-lands or pastures tracked by rabbits, even in a bleak and, to most, cheerless day, like this,

when a villager would be thinking of his inn, I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related, and that cold and solitude are friends of mine. I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent to what others get by churchgoing and prayer. I come home to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful. I have told many that I walk every day about half the daylight, but I think they do not believe it. I wish to get the Concord, the Massachusetts, the America, out of my head and be sane a part of every day. Journal (January 7, 1857)

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Walden, `Economy', 1854

There are now-a-days professors of philosophy but not philosophers. Walden, `Economy', 1854

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality which surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions.

Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. Civil Disobedience

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account...

Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. Civil Disobedience

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. -- Civil Disobedience

Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. Civil Disobedience

I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man. Civil Disobedience

One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house. I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It is true, I might have resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might have run "amok" against society; but I preferred that society should run "amok" against me, it being the desperate party.

Walden; or, Life in the Woods, The Village

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. Walden, `Economy', 1854

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. "Where I Lived and What I Lived For" in Walden

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. "Economy" in Thoreau's Walden

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. Life Without Principle

He will get to the goal first who stands stillest.

(Most of humankind's problems arise from the inability to sit still in a room. Blaise Pascal)

My greatest skill has been to want but little. Thoreau



	Home Henry David Thoreau Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplicity, simplicity. Walden, `Where I Lived, and What I Lived For', 1854 As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. Walden, `Economy', 1854 It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all. I found it invariably true, the poorer I am the richer I am. However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. "Conclusion" to Walden The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. Slavery in Massachusetts He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them in pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist. Civil Disobedience 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 in office. from Life without Principle The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? from "Economy" in Walden I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure... But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at one no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. Civil Disobedience In the streets and in society I am almost invariably cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean. No amount of gold or respectability would in the least redeem it,-- dining with the Governor or a member of Congress!! But alone in the distant woods or fields, in unpretending sprout-lands or pastures tracked by rabbits, even in a bleak and, to most, cheerless day, like this, when a villager would be thinking of his inn, I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related, and that cold and solitude are friends of mine. I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent to what others get by churchgoing and prayer. I come home to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful. I have told many that I walk every day about half the daylight, but I think they do not believe it. I wish to get the Concord, the Massachusetts, the America, out of my head and be sane a part of every day. Journal (January 7, 1857) The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Walden, `Economy', 1854 There are now-a-days professors of philosophy but not philosophers. Walden, `Economy', 1854 To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality which surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions. Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. Civil Disobedience I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account... Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. Civil Disobedience The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. -- Civil Disobedience Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. Civil Disobedience I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man. Civil Disobedience One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house. I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It is true, I might have resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might have run "amok" against society; but I preferred that society should run "amok" against me, it being the desperate party. Walden; or, Life in the Woods, The Village Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. Walden, `Economy', 1854 I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. "Where I Lived and What I Lived For" in Walden I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. "Economy" in Thoreau's Walden There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. Life Without Principle He will get to the goal first who stands stillest. (Most of humankind's problems arise from the inability to sit still in a room. Blaise Pascal) My greatest skill has been to want but little. Thoreau