Henry David Thoreau Quotes

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

For there is nothing so social by nature, [and] so unsocial by its corruption, as this race.

The accumulation of numbers always augments in some measure moral corruptions, and the consequences to health of the various vices incident thereto, are well known.

The men were all scumbags, but the whole point of the film is to show the development of that. Each guy is going in there to have a good time. By and large, these men are career men, family men, and you just see the deterioration of them.

We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave society devoid of belief.

Obscenity, which is ever blasphemy against the divine beauty in life, is a monster for which the corruption of society forever brings forth new food, which it devours in secret.

When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.

Cities are ruined when they were unable to distinguish worthless citizens from virtuous ones.

When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community.

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

Everywhere we are surrounded by dogs and sorcerers and whores and the Godless and all who love lies and commit them.

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

Tolerating organized crime promotes the cheap philosophy that everything is a racket. It promotes cynicism among adults. It contributes to the confusion of the young and to the increase of juvenile delinquency.

In my culture, whispering in the company of others is considered rude.

Christianity, alcohol the two great means of corruption.

I have seen people rude by being over-polite.

It seldom pays to be rude. It never pays to be only half-rude.

Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride; of strong sense and feeble reasons; of good eating and ill-living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property.

Was it the forgetfulness of old age or personal incapacity that made the man able to say please but not thank you?

The newspaper has debauched the American until he is a slavish, simpering, and angerless citizen; it has taught him to be a lump mass-man toward fraud, simony, murder, and lunacies more vile than those of Commodus or Caracalla.

Manners are very communicable: men catch them from each other.

It must be that evil communications corrupt good dispositions.

To be rude is as good as being clever.

American's greatest deficit is no longer found in the federal budget. It is a moral deficit, and it may be found in a polluted and poisoned culture that has become the great enemy within.

If you are going to be rude, be quick about it.