Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Le gouvernement le meilleur est celui qui gouverne le moins

To make a railroad round the world available to all mankind is equivalent to grading the whole surface of the planet.

Tous les hommes reconnaissent le droit à la révolution, c'est-à-dire le droit de refuser fidélité et allégeance au gouvernement et le droit de lui résister quand sa tyrannie ou son incapacité sont notoires et intolérables.

Il est plus désirable de cultiver le respect du bien que le respect de la loi. Nous devons être d'abord des hommes et ensuite seulement des sujets

O dia é uma síntese do ano. A noite é o inverno, a manhã e o entardecer são a primavera e o outono, e as horas ao redor do meio dia são o verão

How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?

Wir haben heute Professoren der Philosophie, aber keine Philosophen.

I found my account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen before—so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might have walked about the foot of the tree for threescore years and ten, and yet I certainly should never have seen them.

Ainsi, sous le nom d'Ordre et de Gouvernement Civique, nous sommes tous amenés à rendre hommage et allégeance à notre propre médiocrité. On rougit d'abord de son crime et puis on s'y habitue ; et le voilà qui d'immoral devient amoral et non sans usage dans la vie que nous nous sommes fabriquée.

Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite--only a sense of existence.

the conductor shouts All aboard! when the smoke is blown away and the vapor condensed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are run over—and it will be called, and will be, A melancholy accident.

As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly.

Wir haben es eilig, eine telegrafische Verbindung zwischen Maine und Texas herzustellen: aber Maine und Texas haben sich vielleicht gar nichts Wichtiges mitzuteilen?

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or something to be.

Por mais mesquinha que seja sua vida, aceite-a e viva-a; não se esquive a ela nem a trate com termos duros. Ela não é tão ruim quanto você

Les gens qui, tout en désapprouvant le caractère et les mesures d'un gouvernement, lui concèdent leur obéissance et leur appui sont sans conteste ses partisans les plus zélés et par là, fréquemment, l'obstacle le plus sérieux aux réformes.

Every man looks at his woodpile with a kind of affection.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined.

to be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independences, magnanimity, and trust. it is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically but practically. the success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly

En général, les hommes, sous un gouvernement comme le nôtre, croient de leur devoir d'attendre que la majorité se soit rendue à leurs raisons. Ils croient que s'ils résistaient, le remède serait pire que le mal ; mais si le remède se révèle pire que le mal, c'est bien la faute du gouvernement. C'est lui le responsable.

Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum, Et documenta damus qua simus origine nati. Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way,— "From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care, Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are.

Mathematics does not lie, there are many lying mathematicians.