"Your church is a baby-house made of blocks.












Any fool can make a ruleAnd any fool will mind it.
More Henry David Thoreau quotes
"The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely appli...
"It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
"If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
"A common and natural result of an undue respect of law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, ...
"Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts, -a mere sha...
"Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
"Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress...
"They who suspect a Mephistophiles, or sneering, satirical devil, under all, have not learned the secret of true humor, which sympathizes with gods the...
"If a man does not keep pace with hiscompanions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Lethim step to the music which he hears, however m...
"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
"But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-...
"Yet, for my part, I was never usually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary. I am glad to have drunk w...
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.