How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health! The discipline of the schools or of business can never impart such serenity to the mind.—Journal, 6 May 1851
How much of the life of certain men goes to sustain—to make respected—the institutions of society.—Journal, 6 September 1851
I am freer than any planet.—Journal, 21 March 1840
I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer.—Walden
I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.—"Civil Disobedience
I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was something unpleasant.—Walden
I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.—"Civil Disobedience"
I love mankind, I hate the institutions of their forefathers.—Journal, 20 June 1846
I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails. In her midst I can be glad with an entire gladness. If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself, I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this.—Journal, 3 January 1853
I never met a man who cast a free and healthy glance over life.—Journal, 1 August 1841
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