Henry David Thoreau Quotations: HUMANKIND
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 perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.—"Civil Disobedience"
I should like not to exchange any of my life for money.—Thoreau to H. G. O. Blake, 31 December 1856
I suppose that what in other men is religion is in me love of nature.—Journal, 30 October 1842
I think that the standing miracle to man is man. Behind the paling yonder, come rain or shine, hope or doubt, there dwells a man an actual being who can sympathize with our sublimest thoughts.—Journal, 21 May 1851
I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.—Walden
I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a Freedom and Culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.—"Walking"
I would not stand between any man and his genius.—WaldenÂ
If any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I sympathized with them at least.—Walden
