The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable, — of a bad one, to make it less valuable. We can afford that railroad, and all merely material stock, should lose some of its value, for that only compels us to live more simply and economically; but suppose that the value of life itself should be diminished!

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer

Speech (1854-07-04), “Slavery in Massachusetts,” Anti-Slavery Celebration, Framingham, Massachusetts
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