Little Guides to Big Ideas is an SFL educational series introducing important libertarian thinkers. Each post is written to give liberty-minded students a starting point to learn from the great minds that have contributed to the ideas of liberty. 

Who: Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a transcendentalist American author, poet, and philosopher. He was a fervent abolitionist and a fierce critic of the Mexican-American War.  Throughout his life, the state refused to respect his desire to be left alone to reflect on nature and write. Instead, he was jailed briefly for his principled refusal to pay taxes. He opposed tariffs and believed voting was ineffective. It’s unclear whether or not Thoreau was an anarchist, but he is famous for saying “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.”  His preference for simple living was in part motivated by his belief that if he had less, there would be less for the government to take.

Why he matters: His theory of civil disobedience later influenced Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and he is famous for defending the right to ignore the State. While his published works mostly center on nature and natural history, Thoreau’s political insights are responsible for his enduring reputation. His principles of active self-reliant individualism can be found today in every school textbook in America. Of equal importance, his political activism and lifestyle choices demonstrated that he practiced what he preached. He has inspired countless people to avoid lives of “quiet desperation” so they would not ”go to the grave with the song still in them.” 

If you only read one thing: His 1849 essay, “Resistance to Civil Government” (or “Civil Disobedience”) argues that individuals have a duty to prevent the government from making them agents of injustice. In it, Thoreau asserts that the government is inherently corrupt and the judgment of an individual’s conscience is not necessarily inferior to the decisions of a political collective. He reasons that if a law is clearly unjust and the lawmaking process is unequipped to repair the injustice, the law should be broken.

Favorite quote: “There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.”

Available online: All of his collected works have been digitally archived.

Major works:

• Civil Disobedience (1849)
• Slavery in Massachusetts (1854)
• Walden (1854)

Fun fact: Henry David Thoreau was raised in the graphite business and helped innovate the pencil (it would be folly to say he made them since we all know that to be impossible thanks to I, Pencil).