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Henry David Thoreau Quotes
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When asked about life after death:
One world at a time.
Henry David Thoreau
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Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather.
Henry David Thoreau
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Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body. They are infra-human, a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called.
Henry David Thoreau
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Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.
Henry David Thoreau
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Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch." His companion's prayer is forgotten.
Henry David Thoreau
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This generation has come into the world fatally late for some enterprises. Go where we will on the surface of things, men have been there before us.... But the lives of men, though more extended laterally in their range, are still as shallow as ever.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have seen some who did not know when to turn aside their eyes in meeting yours. A truly confident and magnanimous spirit is wiser than to contend for the mastery in such encounters. Serpents alone conquer by the steadiness of their gaze. My friend looks me in the face and sees me, that is all.
Henry David Thoreau
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You must ascend a mountain to learn your relation to matter, and so to your own body, for it is at home there, though you are not.
Henry David Thoreau
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They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating property. The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it.
Henry David Thoreau
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The truth is, there is money buried everywhere, and you have only to go to work to find it.
Henry David Thoreau
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If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?
Henry David Thoreau
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What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses? A government that pretends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day!
Henry David Thoreau
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They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,--how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long.
Henry David Thoreau
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The boatmen appeared to lead an easy and contented life, and we thought that we should prefer their employment ourselves to many professions which are much more sought after. They suggested how few circumstances are necessary to the well-being and serenity of man, how indifferent all employments are, and that any may seem noble and poetic to the eyes of men, if pursued with sufficient buoyancy and freedom.
Henry David Thoreau
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We are ashamed of our fear; for we know that a righteous man would not suspect danger nor incur any. Wherever a man feels fear, there is an avenger.
Henry David Thoreau
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As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me the human insect.
Henry David Thoreau
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I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out of it. I have altogether too much patience of this kind.
Henry David Thoreau
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Show me two villages, one embowered in trees and blazing with all the glories of October, the other a merely trivial and treelesswaste, or with only a single tree or two for suicides, and I shall be sure that in the latter will be found the most starved and bigoted religionists and the most desperate drinkers.
Henry David Thoreau
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In Canada an ordinary New England house would be mistaken for the château, and while every village here contains at least severalgentlemen or "squires," there is but one to a seigniory.
Henry David Thoreau
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You may rely on it that you have the best of me in my books, and that I am not worth seeing personally, the stuttering, blunderingclod-hopper that I am. Even poetry, you know, is in one sense an infinite brag and exaggeration. Not that I do not stand on all that I have written,--but what am I to the truth I feebly utter?
Henry David Thoreau
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The condition-of-England question is a practical one. The condition of England demands a hero, not a poet.
Henry David Thoreau
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From exertion come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and sensuality.
Henry David Thoreau
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Work your vein till it is exhausted, or conducts you to a broader one.
Henry David Thoreau
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For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it.
Henry David Thoreau
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The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to see himself.
Henry David Thoreau
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Quote of the day
Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.
George Santayana
Henry David Thoreau
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Born:
July 12, 1817
Died:
May 6, 1862
(aged 44)
Bio:
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian.
Known for:
Walden (1854)
Civil Disobedience (1849)
The Maine woods
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
A Plea for Captain John Brown (1859)
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