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The Thoreau Institute
at Walden Woods Library
Thoreau's
Life & Writings
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Henry D. Thoreau Quotation Pages
On Conscience, Social Responsibility and the Higher Law
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The chief want, in every state that
I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants.
["Life without Principle"]
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Talk about slavery! It is not the
peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought
and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a
tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and
conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which
enslaves the body alone.” [Journal 4 December 1860]
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I would
remind my countrymen, that they are to be men first, and Americans
only at a late and convenient hour. No matter how valuable law may
be to protect your property, even to keep soul and body together, if
it do not keep you and humanity together. ["Slavery in
Massachusetts"]
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The
world rests on principles. [Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 19 December
1854]
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What is wanted is men of
principle, who recognize a higher law than the decision of the
majority. The marines and the militia whose bodies were used lately
were not men of sense nor of principle; in a high moral sense they
were not men at all. [Journal 9 June 1854]
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Under a government which imprisons
any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison.
["Civil Disobedience"]
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It is not desirable to cultivate a
respect for the law, so much as for the right. ["Civil
Disobedience"]
A
Note on the Text:
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Source:
Unless otherwise noted, quotations are from The Writings of Henry
David Thoreau (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906)
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Report
errors to the
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