“I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least:’ I believe, ‘That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”
“It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even well disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you see soldiers marching in over hill and dale to war, against their will, ay, against common sense and conscience…”
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, wagering on moral questions. [But] Even voting for what is right does nothing to bring forward what is right and true. It is only a feeble expression of your desire of what should prevail.
A wise man will not leave it to chance. There is little virtue in the action of the masses.
From what I see, there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
“If injustice is part of the necessary friction of government, let it go; perchance it will wear smooth,-certainly the machine will wear out… but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.”
Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform. The most prevalent errors require the most disinterested virtue to sustain them.
Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced.
[At Walden Pond] “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
“my greatest skill has been to want but little.”
While the masses of other men lead lives of quiet desperation.
“However mean your life is, meet and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its doors as early in the spring. Cultivate property like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts… Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.”
