Henry David Thoreau1856 Photograph

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.

A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

In wildness is the preservation of the world.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart, with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way. The very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep, he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain-tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.