Famous quotes containing the words henry david thoreau, henry david, david, thoreau, civil, disobedience, walden and/or years:
“Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“But for my part, I preferred the solitary dwelling.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The wise are not so much wiser than others as respecters of their own wisdom.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world ... and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light.... They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters are they! We never learned meanness of them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I’m right here to tell you, mister. There ain’t nobody gonna push me off my land. My grandpa took up this land seventy years ago. My pa was born here. We was all born on it. And some of us was killed on it. And some of us died on it. That’s what makes it ourn. Bein’ born on it. And workin’ on it. And dyin’ on it. And not no piece of paper with writin’ on it.”
—Nunnally Johnson (1897–1977)