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Henry David Thoreau -
Nature
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To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health.
Henry David Thoreau
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There have been heroes for whom this world seemed expressly prepared, as if creation had at last succeeded; whose daily life was the stuff of which our dreams are made, and whose presence enhanced the beauty and ampleness of Nature herself.
Henry David Thoreau
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The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate the world....There is naked Nature, inhumanly sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling at the cliffy shore where gulls wheel amid the spray.
Henry David Thoreau
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Nature is mythical and mystical always, and works with the license and extravagance of genius. She has her luxurious and florid style as well as art.
Henry David Thoreau
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When I visit again some haunt of my youth, I am glad to find that nature wears so well. The landscape is indeed something real, and solid, and sincere, and I have not put my foot through it yet.
Henry David Thoreau
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Nature would not appear so rich, the profusion so rich, if we knew a use for everything.
Henry David Thoreau
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It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat the mirror-like surface of the water, in which every twig and blade of grass was so faithfully reflected; too faithfully indeed for art to imitate, for only Nature may exaggerate herself.
Henry David Thoreau
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The lichen on the rocks is a rude and simple shield which beginning and imperfect Nature suspended there. Still hangs her wrinkledtrophy.
Henry David Thoreau
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All these sounds, the crowing of cocks, the baying of dogs, and the hum of insects at noon, are the evidence of nature's health orsound state.
Henry David Thoreau
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When it was proposed to me to go abroad, rub oft some rust, and better my condition in a worldly sense, I fear lest my life will lose some of its homeliness. If these fields and streams and woods, the phenomena of nature here, and the simple occupations of the inhabitants should cease to interest and inspire me, no culture or wealth would atone for the loss.
Henry David Thoreau
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For my own part, I commonly attend more to nature than to man, but any affecting human event may blind our eyes to natural objects. I was so absorbed in him as to be surprised whenever I detected the routine of the natural world surviving still, or met persons going about their affairs indifferent.
Henry David Thoreau
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In the wildest nature, there is not only the material of the most cultivated life, and a sort of anticipation of the last result,but a greater refinement already than is ever attained by man.... Nature is prepared to welcome into her scenery the finest work of human art, for she is herself an art so cunning that the artist never appears in his work.
Henry David Thoreau
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If I wished to see a mountain or other scenery under the most favorable auspices, I would go to it in foul weather, so as to be there when it cleared up; we are then in the most suitable mood, and nature is most fresh and inspiring. There is no serenity so fair as that which is just established in a tearful eye.
Henry David Thoreau
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So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,--the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their "good breeding" respects only secondary objects.
Henry David Thoreau
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There should always be some flowering and maturing of the fruits of nature in the cooking process.
Henry David Thoreau
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How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health!
Henry David Thoreau
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Man's moral nature is a riddle which only eternity can solve.
Henry David Thoreau
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For one that comes with a pencil to sketch or sing, a thousand come with an axe or rifle. What a coarse and imperfect use Indiansand hunters make of nature! No wonder that their race is so soon exterminated.
Henry David Thoreau
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With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike.
Henry David Thoreau
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Friendship is the unspeakable joy and blessing that result to two or more individuals who from constitution sympathize. Such natures are liable to no mistakes, but will know each other through thick and thin. Between two by nature alike and fitted to sympathize, there is no veil, and there can be no obstacle. Who are the estranged? Two friends explaining.
Henry David Thoreau
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We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. This plant speaks to our blood....What a perfect maturity it arrives at! It is the emblem of a successful life concluded by a death not premature, which is an ornament to Nature. What if we were to mature as perfectly, root and branch, glowing in the midst of our decay, like the poke!
Henry David Thoreau
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I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that Nature with which I am acquainted.
Henry David Thoreau
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In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.
Henry David Thoreau
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Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.
Henry David Thoreau
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Surely the fates are forever kind, though Nature's laws are more immutable than any despot's, yet to man's daily life they rarelyseem rigid, but permit him to relax with license in summer weather. He is not harshly reminded of the things he may not do.
Henry David Thoreau
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Quote of the day
Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.
Faith Baldwin
Henry David Thoreau
Creative Commons
Born:
July 12, 1817
Died:
May 6, 1862
(aged 44)
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