Henry David Thoreau quotes for UPSC

A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the State with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated by it as enemies.

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

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

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 that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice.

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

The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.

You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at.

In wildness is the preservation of the world. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild. The city imports it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind.

It takes two to speak the truth, — one to speak, and another to hear.

Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth.

Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length blows it down.

I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

And the cost of a thing it will be remembered as the amount of life it requires to be exchanged for it.

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors. To dwell long upon them is to add to the offense. Repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by something better, which is as free and original as if they had not been.

An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.