Henry David Thoreau Quotes

The wise man neither rejects life nor fears death... just as he does not necessarily choose the largest amount of food, but, rather, the pleasantest food, so he prefers not the longest time, but the most pleasant.

Surveys often show people would prefer a detached house with a lawn and driveway to an apartment. I understand this. It's not my place to presume to tell people where they can live. But perhaps that dream will simply not be possible in the future.

The peoples of the Andes believe in the concept of 'living well' instead of wanting to 'live better' by consuming more, regardless of the cost to our neighbors and our environment.

The human condition today is better than it's ever been, and technology is one of the reasons for that.

Once you've reached the point where you can pay rent, you can go to the vet and you can go to the grocery store, after that point it's all the same. I don't have the appetite for a decadent lifestyle.

As an old-time New Yorker, it's not that I miss the '70s and '80s or whatever. I miss the fact that there was a certain kind of energy that exists when people can live for nothing.

The ultimate purpose of economics, of course, is to understand and promote the enhancement of well-being.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

I see a future where states compete with one another to see which can be the most efficient, and where businesses seek out efficient states in which to locate so they can reap the economic and environmental benefits for their businesses and employees.

[The congressman visited Boston.] We often wonder how things are made so cheap among the Yankees. Come here and you will see women doing men's work, and happy and cheerful as the day is long, and why not?

Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment, to end thirst and hunger, to conquer poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and massive human misery.

The imperatives of the population explosion, … almost inevitably will lessen our belief in the sanctity of the individual human life

The economic development of the country must come first. Education and the raising of the standards of the people will follow. Afterwards political development may be possible.

How can anyone think so insanely that the human life has the same value and, the same morality, independent of numbers? It is lucid to me that every time a new child is born, the value of every human in the world decreases slightly. It is obvious to me that the morality of the population explosion is wholly unlike than when man was a sparse, noble species in its beginning.

What we can do in Singapore may not be doable elsewhere. Some things you know you need: you want efficient government, you want clean government, you want to do away with corruption, you must educate your people. You want to get housing and so on. All these are not such secrets, not so special to Singapore.

Our vision and commitment is towards the country's progress, its place in the world and the happiness of its people.

How much does one person need to live? I've never needed or wanted that much.

From education to the environment, from high wages to health care to human rights, California is proof that progressive policies put into action improve the human condition of all individuals.

In Odisha, we have concentrated on people and their development. We hope to take Odisha to new heights.

We have proven that you can actually move strong, progressive policies, grow the economy, and improve the human condition.

The economy should serve man, not statistics.

If you can't educate your citizens and you can't keep them healthy, you can't begin to be a society.

We are going to seek to improve the lives of our people on an ongoing basis, and since 1994, we have done precisely that.

For one true measure of a nation is its success in fulfilling the promise of a better life for each of its members. Let this be the measure of our nation.

Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilization reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well?