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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 82

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The improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.

The improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Skeletons, Law
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

I am reminded by my journey how exceedingly new this country still is. You have only to travel for a few days into the interior and back parts even of many of the old States, to come to that very America which the Northmen, and Cabot, and Gosnold, and Smith, and Raleigh visited.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Journey, America
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.560, Delphi Classics

Have we even so much as discovered and settled the shores? Let a man travel on foot along the coastand tell me if it looks like a discovered and settled country, and not rather, for the most part, like a desolate island, and No-Man's Land.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Men, Islands

While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.

Henry David Thoreau
Rivers, America, Navy
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.560, Delphi Classics

Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He obeyed it, and found a New World for Castile and Leon.

Henry David Thoreau
America, World, Columbus
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.8, 谷月社

Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with that occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile and so richand varied in its productions, and at the same time so habitable by the European, as this is?

Henry David Thoreau
America, States, Found
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.126, Rowman & Littlefield

As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this country.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Thinking, America
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.9, 谷月社

A man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion of nature by being buried in it.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, May, Might
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.120, Xist Publishing

For the most part, the best man's spirit makes a fearful sprite to haunt his grave.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Spirit, Graves
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.999, Delphi Classics

The condition-of-England question is a practical one. The condition of England demands a hero, not a poet.

Henry David Thoreau
Hero, Demand, England
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.277, Simon and Schuster

I do not believe there are eight hundred human beings on the globe.

Henry David Thoreau
Believe, Eight, Human Nature
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1671, Delphi Classics

For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.

Henry David Thoreau
Two, Human Nature, Cases
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.212, Cosimo, Inc.

The moles nested in my cellar, nibbling every third potato, and making a snug bed even there of some hair left after plastering and of brown paper; for even the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well as man, and they survive the winter only because they are so careful to secure them.

Henry David Thoreau
Winter, Animal, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.152, Graphic Arts Books

Men are in the main alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly quite as well as another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Order, Excellence
Henry David Thoreau (1993). “Civil Disobedience, and Other Essays”, p.67, Courier Corporation

The only government that I recognize--and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army--is that power thatestablishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice.

Henry David Thoreau
Army, Government, Land
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.249, Graphic Arts Books

After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Hands, Majority Rule
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.286, Simon and Schuster

If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Justice, Drowning
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

The lover wants no partiality. He says, Be so kind as to be just.

Henry David Thoreau
Justice, Want, Lovers
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1139, Delphi Classics

It behooves every man to see that his influence is on the side of justice, and let the courts make their own characters.

Henry David Thoreau
Character, Men, Law
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.311, Simon and Schuster

While the Governor, and the Mayor, and countless officers of the Commonwealth are at large, the champions of liberty are imprisoned.

Henry David Thoreau
Government, Justice, Champion
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Civil Disobedience and Other Essays”, p.28, Courier Corporation

I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the leastact of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length even become the laughing-stock of the world.

Henry David Thoreau
Government, Law, Justice
Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.127, Cambridge University Press

Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.

Henry David Thoreau
Fate, Law, Arches
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1671, Delphi Classics

I have not read far in the statutes of this Commonwealth. It is not profitable reading. They do not always say what is true; and they do not always mean what they say.

Henry David Thoreau
Reading, Mean, Law
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.37, Rowman & Littlefield

Why should Canada, wild and unsettled as it is, impress us as an older country than the States, unless because her institutions are old? All things appeared to contend there, as I have implied, with a certain rust of antiquity, such as forms on old armor and iron guns,--the rust of conventions and formalities. It is said that the metallic roofs of Montreal and Quebec keep sound and bright for forty years in some cases. But if the rust was not on the tinned roofs and spires, it was on the inhabitants and their institutions.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Gun, Years
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Journeys, Adventures & Life in Harmony with Nature – 6 Book Collection (Illustrated): Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada & Canoeing in the Wilderness - North American Highlands Series”, p.961, e-artnow

Behold the difference between the Oriental and the Occidental. The former has nothing to do in this world; the latter is full of activity. The one looks in the sun until his eyes are put out; the other follows him prone in his westward course.

Henry David Thoreau
Eye, Differences, Meditation
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.99, Xist Publishing

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