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Henry David
Thoreau
The one great rule of composition is to speak the
truth.
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford
to let alone.
Seek to dispel delusion and all that is
false.
Transcendental
spiritual
truths are revealed through
nature.
Create a deliberate
wakefulness to the
essential facts of life.
A mystical,
spiritual
discipline is
essential for attainment of an
inner clarity of vision.
The
divine
source of all things exists in nature, yet
divine
reality is not exhausted by
nature.
There
exists
within each
human being a moral sense and
an intuitive capacity for
spiritual
truths.
The search for ultimate
reality begins with simplification and with
the desire for clarity of
vision and
spiritual
alertness.
Disobedience is the
true foundation of liberty. The
obedient must be
slaves.
There will never be a
free and
enlightened
State until the
State comes to recognize the
individual as a higher and
independent power, from which all its own
power and authority
are derived, and treats them accordingly.
***
So we saunter toward the Holy
Land, till one day the sun shall
shine more brightly than ever he has
done, shall perchance shine into our minds and
hearts, and light up our
whole lives with a great
awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a
bankside in
autumn.
***
The morning, which is the most
memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour.
Morning is when
I am
awake and there is a
dawn in me.
Then there
is least somnolence in us;
and for an hour, at least, some part of us
awakes which slumbers all the
rest of the day and night.
Little
is to be expected of that day to which we are
not awakened by our own newly
acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of
celestial music, instead of factory bells.
A
fragrance fills the air with a
higher life than we fell asleep from;
and
thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be
good, no less than the
light.
All memorable events, I should
say, transpire in morning
time and in a morning
atmosphere.
To him whose elastic and vigorous
thought keeps pace with the
sun, the day is a perpetual
morning.
It matters
not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men.
Moral reform is the effort to throw off
sleep.
The millions are
awake enough for physical
labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective
intellectual exertion, only one in
a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life.
To be
awake is to be
alive.
I have never yet met a
man who was quite awake.
We must learn to reawaken and
keep ourselves awake, not by
mechanical aids, but by an infinite
expectation of the
dawn, which does not forsake us
in our soundest sleep.
I
know of no more encouraging fact than
the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious
endeavor.
It is something to
be able to paint a particular image, or to
carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve
and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which
morally we can do. To affect the quality of
the day, that is the highest of arts.
Every man is tasked to make his life,
even in its details, worthy of the
contemplation
of his most elevated and critical hour.
That government is best which governs
least.
I went to the woods because I
wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential
facts of life, and
see if I could not learn what it had to
teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
I
did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I
wish to practise resignation, unless it was
quite necessary.
I wanted to live deep
and suck out all the marrow of life, to
live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to
rout all that was not life, to cut a broad
swath and shave close, to drive life into a
corner, and reduce it to its lowest
terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine
meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the Earth; or if it were sublime, to
know it by
experience, and be able to give a true
account of it.
Henry David Thoreau, philosopher,
environmentalist,
author
Civil Disobedience
1849 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. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe-
"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared
for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is
at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments
are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a
standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also
at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an
arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode
which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be
abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present
Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing
government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have
consented to this measure.
This American government- what is it but a
tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to
posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the
vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his
will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the
less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or
other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.
Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on
themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet
this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity
with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does
not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the
American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done
somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For
government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one
another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed
are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of
india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators
are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men
wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they
would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put
obstructions on the railroads.
But, to speak practically and as a
citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at
once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known
what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step
toward obtaining it.
Civil Disobedience By Henry David Thoreau 1849
Disobedience will not be
tolerated ! |
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