Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters? Henry David Thoreau More Quotes by Henry David Thoreau More Quotes From Henry David Thoreau 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 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 excellence men order 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 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 majority-rule men hands If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. Henry David Thoreau drowning justice men The lover wants no partiality. He says, Be so kind as to be just. Henry David Thoreau lovers want justice 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 law character men While the Governor, and the Mayor, and countless officers of the Commonwealth are at large, the champions of liberty are imprisoned. Henry David Thoreau champion government justice The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable; of a bad one, to make it less valuable. Henry David Thoreau valuable government justice 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 Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe. Henry David Thoreau arches fate law 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 law mean 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 gun country years Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or eventhe Elizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made. Henry David Thoreau race dog men The inhabitants of earth behold commonly but the dark and shadowy under side of heaven's pavement; it is only when seen at a favorable angle in the horizon, morning or evening, that some faint streaks of the rich lining of the clouds are revealed. Henry David Thoreau dark clouds morning If rightly made, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal, a creature of two elements, related by one half its structure to some swift and shapely fish, and by the other to some strong-winged and graceful bird. Henry David Thoreau strong fishing animal I have seen some whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to former indulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt children, and at length gave them no peace. They did not know when to swallow their cud, and their lives of course yielded no milk. Henry David Thoreau anger guilt children There never is but one opportunity of a kind. Henry David Thoreau kind opportunity Good religious men, with the love of men in their hearts, and the means to pay their toll in their pockets. Henry David Thoreau religious heart mean The majority of the men of the North, and of the South and East and West, are not men of principle. If they vote, they do not sendmen to Congress on errands of humanity; but while their brothers and sisters are being scourged and hung for loving liberty,... it is the mismanagement of wood and iron and stone and gold which concerns them. Henry David Thoreau iron brother men
