Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right.

Io non sono nato per essere costretto. Respirerò liberamente. Vedremo chi è il più forte. Che forza ha una moltitudine? Solo chi risponde a una legge più alta della mia può costringermi a obbedire. Vogliono che diventi come loro. Ma non conosco uomini costretti a vivere in un modo o in un altro da masse di uomini. Che vita sarebbe quella?

greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.

When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me gravely, "They do not make them so now," not emphasizing the "They" at all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates

A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.

The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed

The man of science, who is not seeking for expression but for a fact to be expressed merely, studies nature as a dead language. I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant.

The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it concealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can always see a face in the fire.

The oldest Egyptian or Hindu philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the statue of divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, since it was I in him that was then so bold, and it is he in me that reviews the vision. No dust has settled on that robe; no time has elapsed since that divinity was revealed.

What is once well done is done forever.

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, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

I am resolved that I will not through humility become the devil's attorney.

I'd rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion

sick take remedy at stated hours—because

Prefiero caminar entre los bosques a ser rey de alguna nación

It is no dream of mine, To ornament a line; I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven Than I live to Walden even. I am its stony shore, And the breeze that passes o'er; In the hollow of my hand Are its water and its sand, And its deepest resort Lies high in my thought.

No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.

We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or

No encontraréis salud en la sociedad, sino en la naturaleza

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know. You must be aware that no thing is what you have taken it to be. You have got to be in a different state from the common.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.

Meanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, added together, was seven miles already planted, were impatient to be hoed

Dichoso es el hombre al que cada día se le permite contemplar algo tan puro y sereno como el cielo de poniente a la puesta de Sol, mientras las revoluciones irritan el mundo

It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as where I live. The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him.