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 »
Thank Heaven, here is not all the world. The buckeye does not grow in New England, and the mockingbird is rarely heard here. The w...ild goose is more of a cosmopolite than we; he breaks his fast in Canada, takes a luncheon in the Ohio, and plumes himself for the night in a southern bayou. Even the bison, to some extent, keeps pace with the seasons, cropping the pastures of the Colorado only till a greener and sweeter grass awaits him by the Yellowstone. Yet we think that if rail fences are pulled down, and stone walls piled up on our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our fates decided. If you are chosen town clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer; but you may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie!... Above thy deep and dreamless sleep The silent stars go by; Yet in thy dark streets shineth The Everlasting Light; The hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee tonight.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This perpetual round of constrained civilities to persons quite indifferent to us, is the most provoking and tiresome thing in the... world, but it is unavoidable in a country town, where everybody is known.... 'Tis a most shocking and unworthy way of spending our precious irrecoverable time, to those who know not its value.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
From time immemorial the men of the town have been famous seamen, and have divided their energies between fishing and hating the E...nglish.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down)... spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn't he danced his did.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The worst feature in the history of those years, is, that no man spake for the Indian. When the Dutch, or the French, or the Engli...sh royalist disagreed with the Colony, there was always found a Dutch or French, or tory party,--an earnest minority,--to keep things from extremity. But the Indian seemed to inspire such a feeling as the wild beast inspires in the people near his den. It is the misfortune of Concord to have permitted a disgraceful outrage upon the friendly Indians settled within its limits, in February, 1676, which ended in their forcible expulsion from town.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is the consequence of this institution that not a school- house, a public pew, a bridge, a pound, a mill-dam, hath been set up,... or pulled down, or altered, or bought, or sold, without the whole population of this town having a voice in the affair. A general contentment is the result. And the people truly feel that they are lords of the soil. In every winding road, in every stone fence, in the smokes of the poor-house chimney, in the clock on the church, they read their own power, and consider, at leisure, the wisdom and error of their judgments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »