Civil Disobedience
 

If you've never read this brilliant short essay by Henry David Thoreau, you should. Published in 1849, the themes resonate today...




"I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure."

Read the rest here: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literatu...obedience.html

“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”

A very wise man.

“To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.”

It is amazing how relevant his words are even today. Shame more people don't follow them though!

Didn't he go live on a pond or something?

I think he wrote a book or magazine article about it.

My Oklahoma education missed a few thangs.

“What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?”

People are too busy being busy to truly think.

Walden.

For 2 years, 2 months and 2 days.

yet Henry voted for stinkin. no logic here.

Wasn't that the guy that started walmarts?

Nah, I was in school a little longer than that.......like 4 years or sumthin'.

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...s/big grin.gif Long time!

Thoreau should be on the compulsory curriculum.

The majority of people I know have never heard of him - always shocked that I am interested in philosophy though!

Says who?

says the peeps he hung with. all his buddies were radical republicans.

Emerson voted for Lincoln, based on abolitionist leanings.

While he was also a severe abolitionist, I doubt that Thoreau voted at all. He often disparaged the practice...

not only that, i find it very ironic that Brown was financed exclusively by ohions, neyorkers, and assashutsians.

Why?