Amidst the downward tendency and proneness of things, when every voice is raised for a new road or another statute or a subscripti...on of stock; for an improvement in dress, or in dentistry; for a new house or a larger business; for a political party, or the division of an estate;Mwill you not tolerate one or two solitary voices in the land, speaking for thoughts and principles not marketable or perishable?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman ...whose preaching my father attended, but never I myself. "Pay," it said, "or be locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. But, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and have the State to back its demand, as well as the Church. However, at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing:M"Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk, and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know where to find a complete list.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the princi...ples of a division of labor to its extreme,--a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection,--to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation,... and for these oversights successive generations have to pay.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What cared Duke Ercole, that bid His mummers to the market-place,... What th' onion-sellers thought or did So that his Plautus set the pace For the Italian comedies?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
the San Marco Library, Whence turbulent Italy should draw... Delight in Art whose end is peace, In logic and in natural law By sucking at the dugs of Greece.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And Guidobaldo, when he made That grammar school of courtesies... Where wit and beauty learned their trade Upon Urbino's windy hill, Had sent no runners to and fro That he might learn the shepherds' will.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »