Comparing Thoreau And Machiavelli

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Thoreau and Machiavelli ideologies are similar because they both describes how leaders and people should response towards each other. Thoreau conclude in his essay that our government system is flaws therefore we must create a new form of government. He implies that people should resist unjust laws because government system are corrupt and reveals machinery people should stop listening to them without questioning. In the essay he indicate that “legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the State chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God”. This clearly supports the author view on our government system is vicious because they serve as evil and they hide their …show more content…

The author explains Hannibal was a powerful leader because he was insanely cruel and he is able to control over his troops. Machiavelli wants effective prince to have this qualities and he implies that every prince must be cruel when he is commands an army so he can control his troops. Therefore, both Machiavelli and Thoreau is alike because one describe how people should react to unjust government and one describes how prince should react to the people. On the contrary, their ideologies are different because Thoreau’s view on taxes is dissimilar from Machiavelli. Thoreau uses the irony of jail and the jail should be like hell, strict, and less freedom, however Thoreau feels greater freedom inside the jail and he believes that jail is the best place for the men. Thoreau points out that, “but, if I deny the authority of the State when it presents its 17 tax-bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without

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