Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Individual consciences are fine but individual consciences have to be made manifest.

Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.

A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?

Many women feel that they are so unimportant that their action can count little for good or ill, but it is the mass of individuals that makes up public opinion and public opinion is what runs a democracy!

Not everything can be solved by government.

The people themselves must think, because the people alone can act.

Sometimes Allah punishes and sometimes men have to do it, and it is a wise man who knows if it's Allah's turn or his own.

Remember, there are two things that keep us oppressed: them and us. We are half of the equation. There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it's now OK to express ourselves publicly. We must make that day ourselves, by speaking out publicly -- first in small numbers, then in greater numbers, until it's simply the way things are and no one thinks twice. Never doubt that we will create this world, because, my friends, we are fortunate to live in a democracy, and in a democracy, we decide what's possible.

If we knew how often the obedience of others is affected by our own, and how often our stepping forth soon brings forth a whole platton of helpers, and how often our speaking forth soon creates a chorus - we would be even more ashamed of our slackess and our silence.

Every American at some point has got to make the connection between their own hopes and dreams and who is elected to office. It's essential. It's very easy to pull the covers up over your head and say, "I can't handle it. Too much." But we just have to handle it and we have to accept that it's our job. Each of us. Nobody is going to take care of it.

The price of freedom is responsibility, but it's a bargain, because freedom is priceless.

If you give the government the right to determine the consumption of the human body, to determine whether one should smoke or not smoke, drink or not drink, there is no good reply you can give to people who say, More important than the body is the mind and the soul, and man hurts himself much more by reading bad books, by listening to bad music and looking at bad movies. Therefore it is the duty of the government to prevent people from committing those faults. And, as you know, for many hundreds of years governments and authorities velieved that it was their duty.

The power of one man or one woman doing the right thing for the right reason, and at the right time, is the greatest influence in our society.

So, never be afraid. Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion, against injustice and lying and greed. If you, not just you in this room tonight, but in all the thousands of other rooms like this one about the world today and tomorrow and next week, will do this, not as a class or classes, but as individuals, men and women, you will change the earth.

The wisest men follow their own direction.

An individual action, multiplied by millions, creates global change.

Government must not supersede the will of the people or the responsibilities of the people. The function of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.

Free people will set the course of history.

I feel very strongly in my opinion that everyone is responsible to themselves for what they do.

Do you wish the world were better? Let me tell you what to do: Set a watch upon your actions, Keep them always straight and true.

I do hope that young men and women will start to think for themselves and start to take responsibility for their own thoughts.

Most of the time we do nothing, myself included, I think the lesson I learned from [playing humanitarian Tessa in The Constant Gardner] is that a lot of drops make up an ocean. If people would stand up and say what they believe in maybe we can make a difference. Helping one person is better than nothing. Just do something.

My political philosophy as a libertarian says that government has no business intervening in any consensual private behavior. My professional ethic as a thinker and writer, however, says that self-knowledge is our ultimate responsibility