No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom Complete independence does not mean arrogant isolation or a superior disdain for all help. Independence means voluntary restraints and discipline, voluntary acceptance of the rule of law. I do not regard capital to be enemy of labor. Coercion cannot but result in chaos in the end. One who uses coercion is guilty of deliberate violence.
Coercion is inhuman.
Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today. Democracy is an impossible thing until the power is shared by all, but let not democracy degenerate into mobocracy. Henry David Thoreau Thoreau strived to live a life of simplicity and self-honesty in harmony with nature. Here is what he said about government. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.