"Our village life would stagnate if it..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau

“In society you will not find health, but in nature. Unless our feet at least stood in the midst of nature, all our faces would bepale and livid. Society is always diseased, and the best is the most so.”

“To a small man every greater is an exaggeration.”

“We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.”

“I learned to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of nature, rather than a member of society.”

“The largest pond is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in its tube.”

“Activity conquers coldness. Stillness conquers heat.”

“Since you are an integral part of a social system, let every act of yours contribute to the harmonization of social life. Any action that is not related directly or remotely to this social aim disturbs your life, and destroys your unity.”

“We with our lives are like islands in the sea... The islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.”

“I am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the State, the community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action.”