Henry David Thoreau
When you immerse yourself in literature, you begin a journey that will lead you to the greatest writers that have walked the earth. Their degree of greatness will vary according to how much their work impacts you and, as such, I was awestruck by the works of Henry David Thoreau, one of my heroes. Born on July 12, 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts, Thoreau was and is one of the most important people you may not have heard of, but whose importance was paramount to us all. Educated at Harvard University, Thoreau refused to pay five dollars for his diploma and, nonetheless, embarked on a life in which he would become a writer, poet, abolitionist, philosopher, and transcendentalist. That last one is a mouth full; transcendentalism was a movement of protest against society and common culture with new intellectual ideas in religion, literature, and philosophy. It is said that Ralph Waldo Emerson, another of my heroes, started this movement and Thoreau and others joined later.
Walden and Civil Disobedience are Thoreau’s greatest works. I urge people to give them a shot, they are the works that influenced the people that you do know, like the great Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, the practitioner of satyagraha, Mahatma Gandhi, and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. In his essay, Civil Disobedience, Thoreau argues what many feel today: “I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government”-things that would eventually even lead him to prison on one occasion. In Walden, he is a naturalist and writes about personal independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual finding, and guide for self reliance. Thoreau lived by himself in a cabin and tested simple living, isolating himself from society to get a better understanding of it. The following are Thoreau quotes from both works I mention:
“Things do not change; we change.”
“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.”
“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”
“Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.”
“If misery loves company, misery has company enough.”
“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
Hope you enjoyed them. 
June 2nd, 2009 at 2:37 pm
The hardest part was selecting the quotes, the man has so many that it is ridiculous!
It is sad that people are “slaves” and fail to fight for change (and I’m not talking about ridiculous Obama change) Most of society settle for less and have no guts to fight for true liberty. True change is achieved by questioning current social affairs and DOING something about it. They say one man cannot change the world, yet history is full of men who have, even after death.
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:41 am
Great list of quotes! It’s just sad that we don’t see this in our current state of social affairs.