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 I also 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.


Henry David Thoreau

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are so...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that ...
WALTER LIPPMANN
That government is best which governs least.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
That government is best which governs least.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
That government is best which governs least.
THOMAS PAINE
I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these sta...
STEPHEN COLBERT
That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Investors tend not to have a big problem with split government because for many investors, the gover...
JOSEPH MCALINDEN
When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also go...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Most problems are best solved privately, not through government. There's a problem of discourtes...
CASS SUNSTEIN
It is your government which is seizing the people of Iraq and killing them. It is your government wh...
AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI
That is the best Government, which best provides for war.
ALGERNON SYDNEY
Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Which government is best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by...
WILLIAM PENN
Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by...
WILLIAM PENN
You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say you can have no Parli...
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
My philosophy is not a bean-counting, accounting 'look at this.' It is a philosophy that sma...
JOHN BOLTON
The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
JOHANN VON GOETHE
Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not ins...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil...
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.
JAMES MONROE
The new co-operation government will do the best it can to address the country's problems, and I...
LUCAS PAPADEMOS
The best government is the least government. In some areas, I'm libertarian. I don't subscri...
WAYNE ROGERS
The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT
The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT
Things said by political parties are different from the decisions of the government which are taken ...
OSCAR FERNANDES
The reason why I am proud of my part in the punk movement is that I think it really did implant a me...
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD
The most important ways in which I think the Internet will affect the big issue is that it will make...
MILTON FRIEDMAN
This certainly reflects a policy shift which the government is yet to state emphatically. I therefor...
ED BARTLETT
The government being the peoples business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at a...
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
The government being the people's business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at ...
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war on liberty, ...
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
To stand on the
brink of what is coming, feeling eager, optimistic anticipation—with no feeli...
ASK AND IT IS GIVEN
A good government implies two things: fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness o...
JAMES MADISON
The British Government very naturally would like to see in India the form of democratic constitution...
MUHAMMAD ALI JINNAH
Frankly, I think we came to the conclusion on this subject that we need to hold up our share of the ...
HOWARD RIEGER
It is the very essence of despotism that it can never afford to fail. This is what distinguishes it...
WALTER LIPPMANN
It seems to us that one of the deepest divisions between the Russians and the Americans or British, ...
JOHN STEINBECK
I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which ...
JAMES BALDWIN
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Tho...
JAMES MADISON
The conception that government should be guided by majority opinion makes sense only if that opinion...
F.A. HAYEK
You have a weak government or no government or several factions claiming to be government. You have ...
LAKHDAR BRAHIMI
They are made out of very corrosive materials. Yet the charge from the government is that this warhe...
BRUCE GOODWIN
You are the best person to know the best way to achieve your dreams. Although people will always hav...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA
I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES
There are a lot of Americans giving donations right now, which is great, but it will take an organiz...
GARY LONG
If [the legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done, the judges are not at liberty to reje...
WILLIAM BLACKSTONE
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by t...
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Government officials and government action are not for sale. The Justice Department will aggressivel...
ALICE FISHER
Let me put it like this: I am not prepared to officiate over on behalf of the British government wha...
MARTIN MCGUINNESS
The government's objective, broadly expressed, is that all persons, whatever their level of abil...
PETER FRASER
It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses o...
JAMES MADISON
We are still exploring the options and it is the government which will have a final say on this. I h...
GUO SHUQING
I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.
JOHN UPDIKE
Sometimes, I think the best kind of poem is one in which there is an acute balance between what is h...
N. SCOTT MOMADAY
People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To th...
OSCAR WILDE
I think, my own personal view is there should be higher and higher levels of autonomy; government sh...
N. R. NARAYANA MURTHY
We are determined to cooperate with the Iraqi government, ... We are determined to help whatever we ...
FAYSSAL MEKDAD
we'll look at every department in this government in terms of efficiency, and there will be changes....
JACK JOHNSON
But be that as it may, I think it is more respectful to you that I should speak to you upon and do m...
ARTHUR CAYLEY
I have been in Congress for more than a half century. I have lived through times of fear and times o...
ROBERT BYRD
It's been said that government doesn't create jobs, business does. For the most part, this i...
CHRISTINE GREGOIRE
I call on the Australian Government to set out the conditions upon which they will provide a taxpaye...
JULIE BISHOP
At our request, we have asked the federal government to create a unit on unsolved Civil Rights murde...
ALVIN SYKES
Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all pol...
ANDREW JACKSON
WikiLeaks is exposing our government officials for the frauds that they are. They also show us how g...
JESSE VENTURA
Yes, I am sorry to see him go but, equally, I am pleased that he has found a club which, under Carl ...
SIMON DELAHUNTY
The culture is the hardest to address. That's the belief that the government will support and bail t...
PETER HARBISON
To save our dying earth, any government which is not environmentalist must go because on earth there...
MEHMET MURAT ILDAN
37. It is better to be single and unhappy than unhappily married.
JAMES C. DOBSON
If terror groups are to be defeated, it is national governments that will have to do so. In nations ...
BILL KRISTOL
When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it....
NARENDRA MODI
I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free.
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON
I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON
If you look at the lyrics, I could be writing that about myself or about the government and hopefull...
CITIZEN COPE
When the people are too much attached to savage independence, to be tolerant of the amount of power ...
JOHN STUART MILL
It's no small irony that the government inevitably and invariably ends up promoting precisely th...
JOCK STURGES
Take me to the height where success would seek my help to succeed!
I ARE
I believe that this nation can only heal from the wounds of racism if we all begin to love blackness...
BELL HOOKS
The aggregate happiness of society, which is best promoted by the practice of a virtuous policy, is,...
GEORGE WASHINGTON
We all know of course that we cannot abolish all the evils in this world by statute or by the enforc...
ELIHU ROOT
It's been said that government doesn't create jobs, business does. For the most part, this is true. ...
CHRISTINE GREGOIRE
When healthcare is at its best, hospitals are four-star hotels, and nurses, personal butlers at the ...
ALEXANDRA ROBBINS
If, for example, existing government intervention is minor, we shall attach a smaller weight to the ...
MILTON FRIEDMAN
Our ports are owned by local governments who are responsible for the ports. It is the Coast Guard an...
KIT BOND
A lot of governments fear American imperialism of all kinds, whether it is our food or our Internet....
ESTHER DYSON
I do not subscribe to the doctrine that the people are the slaves and property of their government. ...
GERRIT SMITH
More and more Georgians are anxious about this kind of taking of property. I think more and more Geo...
JEFF CHAPMAN
I think that there is a malaise in all European countries in this economic cycle which punishes whoe...
STEFANO FOLLI
We need a broad government which will make decisions, but not a national unity government, because w...
REUVEN RIVLIN
We want a government that is for the Palestinian people, and if we can't do that, then there are man...
GHAZI HAMAD
I think the lines have been drawn and it is best now that the government tread carefully.
MAHENDRA CHAUDHRY
People constantly speak of "the government" doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it....
H.L. MENCKEN
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be b...
ARISTOTLE
Privacy issues are very difficult to deal with. If government intervention comes into play, it will ...
JAMES HURLEY

More Henry David Thoreau

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibil...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any noblen...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Simplify, simplify.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
To be awake is to be alive.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The perception of beauty is a moral test.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the worl...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
What is once well done is done forever.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when si...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
That government is best which governs least.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man doe...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Be not simply good - be good for something.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women o...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place exce...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inh...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Live the life you've dreamed.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
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
Truths and roses have thorns about them.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf,...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
There is no remedy for love than to love more.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say t...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your wo...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I lose my respect for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They ar...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the super...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be l...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If I shall sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I'm sure that, fo...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet ou...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and f...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The world is but a canvas to our imagination.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
This world is but a canvas to our imaginations.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversa...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are so...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
This American government -- what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it g...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna an...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for law, so much as a respect for right.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injust...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the l...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
In the long run, we only hit what we aim at.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another's. We see so much only as we possess.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and wort...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my n...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extravagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond th...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, or thoughts are affection; and am sensible ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, becaus...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and wat...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual ph...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Time is but the stream I go fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as this brain.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Associate reverently, as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
How can they expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the sou...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I have a deep sympathy with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more m...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can let alone.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is mo...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It requires nothing less than a chivalric feeling to sustain a conversation with a lady.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no for...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Men have become the tools of their trade.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his t...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his livin...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It takes two to speak truth -- one to speak, and another to hear.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will t...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; suc...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, p...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must lay it down and commence living on its h...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The only wealth is life.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowled...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine,...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I have lived some thirty-odd years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valu...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been rid...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Poetry implies the whole truth, philosophy expresses only a particle of it.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Pity the man who has a character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor i...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We falsely attribute to men a determined character -- putting together all their yesterdays -- and a...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it pea...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Seve...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Fame is not just. She never finely or discriminatingly praises, but coarsely hurrahs.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
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
We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU