All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obli­gation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.


Henry David Thoreau

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We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we h...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It's not enough to be busy. The question is: What are we busy about?
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
People die of fright and live of confidence.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their l...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It is only when we forget out learning that we begin to know.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch of a free meandering brook.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If you give money, spend yourself with it.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I was once reproved by a minister who was driving a poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds amo...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fool...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I would not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate pov...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any preceden...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest t...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It is desirable that a man live in all respects so simply and preparedly that if an enemy take the t...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Life in us is like the water in a river.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Of what significance are the things you can forget.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, an they who edit and read it are old women ov...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU