3,409 Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.

It [is of] some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessities of life.

As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on mankind.

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid.

I am convinced that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.

We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting to me.

As to conforming outwardly and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that.

If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?

Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself.