Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Good & Evil
Men have a singular desire to be good without being good for any thing, because, perchance, they think vaguely that so it will be good for them in the end.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Men invite the devil in at every angle and then prate about the garden of Eden and the fall of man.—Journal, 5 November 1855
Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails.—Walden
The Brahman never proposes courageously to assault evil, but patiently to starve it out. His active faculties are paralyzed by the idea of cast, of impassable limits, of destiny and the tyranny of time.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything it is very likely to be my good behavior.—Walden
There is a reptile in the throat of the greedy man always thirsting and famishing. It is not his own natural hunger and thirst which he satisfies.—Journal, 2 September 1851
There is no ill which may not be dissipated like the dark, if you let in stronger light upon it. Overcome evil with good.—"The Service"
Where an angel travels it will be paradise all the way, but where Satan travels it will be burning marl and cinders.—"Paradise (to be) Regained"
