None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of personal integrity and moral conviction in one's actions.
Henry David Thoreau's quote speaks to the idea that each individual has the right and obligation to act according to their own sense of what is right, suggesting that one should prioritize personal conscience over societal expectations or pressures. It highlights the value of self-governance and the moral responsibility one holds to act authentically, aligning one's actions with personal beliefs rather than conformity.
Themes
ObligationIntegrityMoralRightPersonalAction
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal values, this quote can be used to encourage individuals to follow their conscience.
More from Henry David Thoreau
All quotes βThrough want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.
Henry David ThoreauRead
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.
Henry David ThoreauRead
As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.
Henry David ThoreauRead
That grand old poem called Winter
Henry David ThoreauRead
Similar quotes
The senses are a kind of reason. Taste, touch and smell, hearing and seeing, are not merely a means to sensation, enjoyable or otherwise, but they are also a means to knowledge - and are, indeed, your only actual means to knowledge.
Joseph CampbellRead
Who included me among the ranks of the human race?
Joseph BrodskyRead
A hundred suspicions don't make a proof.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
Fame is a form of misunderstanding.
Madonna CicconeRead
The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.
Thomas JeffersonRead
War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.
James MadisonRead