Leo Tolstoy referred to Thoreau's essay as one of the essential readings that led him to shape his nonviolent methodology. Great writers such as Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, and William Butler Yeats spoke about the influence that their encounter with this text by Thoreau had on their thought and work.

“Thanks to his writings, but also to his personal struggle, we have all become the bearers of a great legacy, that of creative protest! [...] His teachings are now more alive than ever!” Martin Luther King