Henry David Thoreau, Slavery In Massachusetts Quotes

Those who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts.

A distinguished clergyman told me that he chose the profession of a clergyman because it afforded the most leisure for literary pursuits. I would recommend to him the profession of a governor.

Now-a-days, men wear a fool's cap, and call it a liberty cap.

The fate of the country... does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length ever become the laughing-stock of the world.

There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of 'expediency.' There is no such thing as sliding up hill. In morals, the only sliders are backsliders.

I believe that, in this country, the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the church did in its worst period. We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians.

If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.

I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour.