Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.

While some men believe in the infinite, some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.

Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men. The former are so much the freer.

If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life.

The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode.

The universe expects every man to do his duty in his parallel of latitude.

For a man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost...Not 'til we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding ; How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile.

Heroes are often the most ordinary of men.

Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up.

It often happens that a man is more humanely related to a cat or dog than to any human being.

Law never made men a whit more just.

There is more religion in men's science, than there is science in their religion.

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.

Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over your head.

It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience, but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.

Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

A man sits as many risks as he runs.

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.