Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

1. Walden Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862) “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live” Individualism Civil Disobedience Transcendentalist

2. “However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.” “Simplify, simplify, simplify” “The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains.”

4. “It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.”

5. Thoreau advocated “Civil Disobedience,” the idea of non-violently refusing to follow laws you consider to be unjust and morally wrong, and accepting the legal consequences for it. His ideas inspired other leaders, such as MLK, Ghandi, and Nelson Mandela. An example of civil disobedience is when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, and was arrested. “The State is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.” Civil Disobedience