It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are yourself the slave-driver.
—Journal, 1845-47It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not offend the imagination.
—WaldenIt is highly important to invent a dress which will enable us to be abroad with impunity in the severest storms. We cannot be said to have fully invented clothing yet.
—Journal, 22 April 1856It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such.
—Journal, 30 August 1856It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
—"Civil Disobedience"It is not easy to write in a journal what interests us at any time, because to write it is not what interests us.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversIt is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?
—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 16 November 1857It is not many moments that I live under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.
—"Civil Disobedience"It is necessary not to be Christian, to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversIt is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.
—"Resistance to Civil Government"It is not to be forgotten, that while the law holds fast the thief and murderer, it lets itself go loose.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversIt is obeying the suggestions of a higher light within you that you escape from yourself.
—Journal, 30 August 1856It is remarkable that no pains is taken to teach children to distinguish colors. I am myself uncertain about the names of many.
—Journal, 28 January 1852It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book. Any distinguished traveler who comes to our shores is likely to get more dinners and speeches of welcome than he can well dispose of, but the best books, if noticed at all, meet with coldness and suspicion, or, what is worse, gratuitous, off-hand criticism.
—"Thomas Carlyle and His Works"