Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

About Henry David Thoreau:

Henry David Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Resistance to Civil Government (also known as Civil Disobedience), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

As the sun went down, I saw a solitary boatman disporting on the smooth lake. The falling dews seemed to strain and purify the air, and I was soothed with an infinite stillness. I got the world, as it were, by the nape of the neck, and held it under ...

Henry David Thoreau

The fate of the country... does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

Henry David Thoreau

If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.

Henry David Thoreau

I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour.

Henry David Thoreau

A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length ever become the laughing-stock of the world.

Henry David Thoreau

Now-a-days, men wear a fool's cap, and call it a liberty cap.

Henry David Thoreau

Probably no country was ever ruled by so mean a class of tyrants as, with a few noble exceptions, are the editors of the periodical press in this country. And as they live and rule only by their servility, and appealing to the worst, and not the bett...

Henry David Thoreau

I believe that, in this country, the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the church did in its worst period. We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians.

Henry David Thoreau

There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of 'expediency.' There is no such thing as sliding up hill. In morals, the only sliders are backsliders.

Henry David Thoreau

Those who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts.

Henry David Thoreau

A distinguished clergyman told me that he chose the profession of a clergyman because it afforded the most leisure for literary pursuits. I would recommend to him the profession of a governor.

Henry David Thoreau

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?

Henry David Thoreau

No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to.

Henry David Thoreau

As for Doing-good...I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.

Henry David Thoreau

It is a very remarkable and significant fact that though no man is quite well or healthy yet every one believes practically that health is the rule & disease the exception.

Henry David Thoreau

With what infinite & unwearied expectation and proclamations the cocks usher in every dawn, as if there had never been one before.

Henry David Thoreau

Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself.

Henry David Thoreau

The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks.

Henry David Thoreau

The silence rings—it is musical & thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible—I hear the unspeakable.

Henry David Thoreau

I am thinking by what long discipline and at what cost a man learns to speak simply at last.

Henry David Thoreau

The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering from want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.

Henry David Thoreau

Author Bio

  • NameHenry David Thoreau
  • Description1817-1862 American author, abolitionist, naturalist
  • BornJuly 12, 1817
  • DiedMay 6, 1862
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Poet; Philosopher; Essayist; Autobiographer