What is called common sense is excellent in its department, and as invaluable as the virtue of conformity in the army and navy,--for there must be subordination,--but uncommon sense, that sense which is common only to the wisest, is as much more excellent as it is more rare.
Henry David ThoreauLet Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic, and his trappings will have to serve that mood too.
Henry David ThoreauPerhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man.
Henry David ThoreauAll nations love the same jests and tales, Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, and the same translated suffice for all.
Henry David ThoreauThe preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state....The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard.
Henry David Thoreau