Slavery in Massachusetts Quotes

“The fate of the country... does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length ever become the laughing-stock of the world.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“Probably no country was ever ruled by so mean a class of tyrants as, with a few noble exceptions, are the editors of the periodical press in this country. And as they live and rule only by their servility, and appealing to the worst, and not the better nature of man, the people who read them are in the condition of the dog that returns to his vomit.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“Those who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“Now-a-days, men wear a fool's cap, and call it a liberty cap.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“A distinguished clergyman told me that he chose the profession of a clergyman because it afforded the most leisure for literary pursuits. I would recommend to him the profession of a governor.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of 'expediency.' There is no such thing as sliding up hill. In morals, the only sliders are backsliders.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“I believe that, in this country, the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the church did in its worst period. We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. They are the lovers of law and order who observe the law when the government breaks it.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“I walk toward one of our ponds; but what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them; when we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both the rulers and the ruled are without principle? The remembrance of my country spoils my walk. My thoughts are murder to the State, and involuntarily go plotting against her.

But it chanced the other day that I scented a white water-lily, and a season I had waited for had arrived. It is the emblem of purity. It bursts up so pure and fair to the eye, and so sweet to the scent, as if to show us what purity and sweetness reside in, and can be extracted from, the slime and muck of earth. I think I have plucked the first one that has opened for a mile. What confirmation of our hopes is in the fragrance of this flower! I shall not so soon despair of the world for it, notwithstanding slavery, and the cowardice and want of principle of Northern men. It suggests what kind of laws have prevailed longest and widest, and still prevail, and that the time may come when man's deeds will smell as sweet. Such is the odor which the plant emits. If Nature can compound this fragrance still annually, I shall believe her still young and full of vigor, her integrity and genius unimpaired, and that there is virtue even in man, too, who is fitted to perceive and love it.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“The editor is a preacher whom you involuntarily support. Your tax is commonly one cent daily, and it costs nothing for pew hire. But how many an intelligent foreigner, as well as my own convictions, when I say, that probably no country was ever ruled by so mean a class of tyrants as, with a few noble exceptions, are the editors of the periodical press in this country. And as they live and rule only by their servility, and appealing to the worst of the, and not the better nature of man, the people who read them are in the condition of the dog that returns to his vomit.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“I walk toward one of our ponds; but what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them; when we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both the rulers and the ruled are without principle? The remembrance of my country spoils my walk. My thoughts are murder to the State, and involuntarily go plotting against her.”
― Henry David Thoreau , Slavery in Massachusetts

“I hear a good deal said about trampling this law under foot. Why, one need not go out of his way to do that. This law rises not to the level of the head or the reason; its natural habitat is in the dirt. It was born and bred, and has its life, only in the dust and mire, on a level with the feet; and he who walks with freedom, and does not with Hindoo mercy avoid treading on every venomous reptile, will inevitably tread on it, and so trample it under foot- and Webster, its maker, with it, like the dirt- bug and its ball.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“Much has been said about American slavery, but I think that we do not even yet realize what slavery is. If I were seriously to propose to Congress to make mankind into sausages, I have no doubt that most of the members would smile at my proposition, and if any believed me to be in earnest, they would think that I proposed something much worse than Congress had ever done. But if any of them will tell me that to make a man into a sausage would be much worse—would be any worse—than to make him into a slave—than it was to enact the Fugitive Slave Law—I will accuse him of foolishness, of intellectual incapacity, of making a distinction without a difference. The one is just as sensible a proposition as the other.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable—of a bad one, to make it less valuable. We can afford that railroad and all merely material stock should lose some of its value, for that only compels us to live more simply and economically; but suppose that the value of life itself should be diminished! How can we make a less demand on man and nature, how live more economically in respect to virtue and all noble qualities, than we do? I have lived for the last month_and I think that every man in Massachusetts capable of the sentiment of patriotism must have had a similar experience—with the sense of having suffered a vast and indefinite loss. I did not know at first what ailed me. At last it occurred to me that what I had lost was a country. I had never respected the government near to which I lived, but I had foolishly thought that I might manage to live here, minding my private affairs, and forget it.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“Life itself being worth less, all things with it, which minister to it, are worth less. Suppose you have a small library, with pictures to adorn the walls—a garden laid out around—and contemplate scientific and literary pursuits and discover all at once that your villa, with all its contents is located in hell, and that the justice of the peace has a cloven foot and a forked tail—do not these things suddenly lose their value in your eyes?”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“The free men of New England have only to refrain from purchasing and reading these sheets, have only to withhold their cents, to kill a score of them at once.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“The Church has much improved within a few years; but the Press is almost, without exception, corrupt. I believe that, in this country, the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence, than the Church did in its worst period. We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaoer,”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts

“Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality--that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient?”
― Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts