Thoreau—Battling Evil

Winslow Homer, Red Shirt, Homosassa, Florida (1904)

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

–Henry David Thoreau, Walden, ch 1: Economy (1854)