Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Justice

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  Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sweet, Justice, Musical

  Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.44, Rowman & Littlefield

• I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Government, Justice

  Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.2, Cambridge University Press

• After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Hands, Majority Rule

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.286, Simon and Schuster

• We do not live by justice, but by grace.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Justice, Grace

  Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “A Yankee in Canada: With Anti-slavery and Reform Papers”, p.245

• Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves. . . .

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Lakes, Law

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.44, Courier Corporation

• To watch this crystal globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Clouds, Weather, Two

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2012, Delphi Classics

• When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country [Mexico] is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Military, Army

• Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Justice, May

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.87, Penguin

• If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Justice, Would Be, Spiders

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.276, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• In 1694 a law was passed "that every settler who deserted a town for fear of the Indians should forfeit all his rights therein." But now, at any rate, as I have frequently observed, a man may desert the fertile frontier territories of truth and justice, which are the State's best lands, for fear of far more insignificant foes, without forfeiting any of his civil rights therein. Nay, townships are granted to deserters, and the General Court, as I am sometimes inclined to regard it, is but a deserters' camp itself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Rights, Law

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.92, Jazzybee Verlag

• The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable; of a bad one, to make it less valuable.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Government, Justice, Valuable

  Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “A Yankee in Canada: With Anti-slavery and Reform Papers”, p.113

• The state does not demand justice of its members, but thinks that it succeeds very well with the least degree of it, hardly more than rogues practice; and so do the neighborhood and the family. What is commonly called Friendship even is only a little more honor among rogues.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Family, Thinking, Practice

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.111, Penguin

• Why the jailer does not leave open his prison doors,--why the judge does not dismiss his case,--why the preacher does not dismisshis congregation! It is because they do not obey the hint God gives them, nor accept the pardon which he freely offers to all.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Doors, Law, Giving

• I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the leastact of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length even become the laughing-stock of the world.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Government, Law, Justice

  Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.127, Cambridge University Press

• Whoever can discern truth has received his commission from a higher source than the chiefest justice in the world who can discernonly law. He finds himself constituted judge of the judge. Strange that it should be necessary to state such simple truths!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Simple, Law

  Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.28, David M Gross

• The only government that I recognize--and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army--is that power thatestablishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Army, Government, Land

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.249, Graphic Arts Books

• The Oriental philosophy approaches easily loftier themes than the modern aspires to; and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about them. It only assigns their due rank respectively to Action and Contemplation, or rather does full justice to the latter. Western philosophers have not conceived of the significance of Contemplation in their sense.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Justice

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.113, Delphi Classics

• If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Justice, Drowning

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

• But government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Majority Rule, Justice

  Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.2, Cambridge University Press

• I should fear the infinite power and inflexible justice of the almighty mortal hardly as yet apotheosized, so wholly masculine, with no sister Juno, no Apollo, no Venus, nor Minerva, to intercede for me, thumoi phileousa te, kedomene te.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sister, God, Women

• The lover wants no partiality. He says, Be so kind as to be just.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Justice, Want, Lovers

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1139, Delphi Classics

• If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Office, Justice

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.249, Graphic Arts Books

• It behooves every man to see that his influence is on the side of justice, and let the courts make their own characters.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Men, Law

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.311, Simon and Schuster

• While the Governor, and the Mayor, and countless officers of the Commonwealth are at large, the champions of liberty are imprisoned.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Government, Justice, Champion

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Civil Disobedience and Other Essays”, p.28, Courier Corporation

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