The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: With Bibliographical Introductions and Full Indexes. In Ten Volumes, Volume 10

Front Cover
Houghton, Mifflin, 1893

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 134 - NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried ; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
Page 148 - Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
Page 250 - They tame but one another still: Early or late They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath, When they, pale captives, creep to death. The garlands wither on your brow, Then boast no more your mighty deeds; Upon Death's purple altar now See, where the victor-victim bleeds: Your heads must come To the cold tomb; Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.
Page 144 - ... But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels...
Page 134 - A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powdermonkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay^ against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.
Page 136 - How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organizations as my government which is the slave's government also.
Page 144 - If a man who has no property refuses but once to earn nine shillings for the state. he is put in prison for a period unlimited by any law that I know, and determined only by the discretion of those who placed him there; but if he should steal ninety times nine shillings from the state, he is soon permitted to go at large again. If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth — certainly the machine will wear out.
Page 150 - Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the state will not hesitate which to choose.
Page 220 - but firm, truthful, and intelligent. His men, too, who survive, are like him. . . . Colonel Washington says that he was the coolest and firmest man he ever saw in defying danger and death. With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand, and held his rifle with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dear as they could. Of the three white prisoners, Brown, Stevens,...
Page 134 - Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then?

Bibliographic information