Quotes from Henry David Thoreau
Nature has left nothing to the mercy of man.
- Henry David Thoreau
Let a slight snow come and cover the earth, and the tracks of men will show how little the woods and fields are frequented.
- Henry David Thoreau
The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies.
- Henry David Thoreau
Fishing has been styled 'a contemplative man's recreation,' ... and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.
- Henry David Thoreau
All that man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love-to sing, and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love.
- Henry David Thoreau
I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many pleasures which he will not know!
- Henry David Thoreau
A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.
- Henry David Thoreau
Nothing can shock a brave man but dullness.
- Henry David Thoreau
In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead.
- Henry David Thoreau
Men are as innocent as the morning to the unsuspicious.
- Henry David Thoreau
Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are NOT good?
- Henry David Thoreau
The question is whether you can bear freedom. At present the vast majority of men, whether white or black, require the discipline of labor which enslaves them for their own good.
- Henry David Thoreau