A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that surround it.
Henry David ThoreauI believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.
Henry David ThoreauIt is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such.
Henry David ThoreauThere is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains itsmaxims. It has no temple, nor even a solitary column. There goes a rumor that the earth is inhabited, but the shipwrecked mariner has not seen a footprint on the shore. The hunter has found only fragments of pottery and the monuments of inhabitants.
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