Essays and Other Writings of Henry Thoreau

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Walter Scott, 1901 - 271 pages

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Page 75 - In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize.
Page 83 - Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the state by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race...
Page 254 - Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird, Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight, Lark without song, and messenger of dawn, Circling above the hamlets as thy nest; Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts; By night star-veiling, and by day Darkening the light and blotting out the sun; . Go thou my incense upward from this hearth, And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.
Page xiii - He touched the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay. And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropped into the western bay. At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue: Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
Page 75 - How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also.
Page 85 - If .a state is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame ; if a state is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors are the subjects of shame.
Page 123 - He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene, But with his keener eye The axe's edge did try; Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite, To vindicate his helpless right, But bowed his comely head Down, as upon a bed.
Page 86 - I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was.
Page 88 - I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them.
Page 72 - ... 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...

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