Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Community

• One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Generosity

• When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Volunteer, Community, Brave

  "A Plea for Captain John Brown" (1859)

• It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the saint dwell there so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Night, Long, Community

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.168, Penguin

• I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased imagination surrounded him, and which he believed to be real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we are never alone.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Real, Loneliness, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Walden; Or, Life in the Woods”, p.89, Courier Corporation

• I am convinced that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Community, Would Be

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.104, Simon and Schuster

• I mean that they (students) should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Mean, Exercise, Games

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.180, Penguin

• We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Thinking, Thoughtful

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Wisdom, Money

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.216, Graphic Arts Books

• Those services which the community will most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Money, Community, Pay

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.416, Penguin

• An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Office, Community

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.216, Graphic Arts Books

• If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates a rottenness at the foundation of our community.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Community, Police

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.414, Yale University Press

• I should have liked to come across a large community of pines, which had never been invaded by the lumbering army.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Army, Should Have, Community

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.123, Trajectory Inc

• Even in civilized communities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of development.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Hunting, Community

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden and Civil Disobedience”, p.154, Xist Publishing

• An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Community, Doe

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.216, Graphic Arts Books

You May Also Like:

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Walt Whitman

Margaret Fuller

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Leo Tolstoy

Herman Melville

Mahatma Gandhi