Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Atheism

• Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Common Sense, Perception

  1854 Walden, or Life in the Woods,'Conclusion'.

• We are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. We can never have enough of nature.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Reality, Sublime, Atheism

• Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dirty, Men, Atheism

  'Walden' (1854) 'The Village'

• It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God.

  Henry David Thoreau

  God, Country, Men

  1849 A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,'Sunday'.

• Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Communication, Atheism, Saint

  Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.75, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God himself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Atheism, May

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.62, Heron Dance Press

• Cast your whole vote, not a piece of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless when it conforms to a majority; but is irresistable 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.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Giving Up, Fear, War

  Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.11, Hayes Barton Press

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