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Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
Henry David Thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Every
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Men
Dead
Preserve
Life
Tree
Preserves
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Aright
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Forests
Moose
Rather
Trees
Pine
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Destroy
Conservation
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.
Henry David Thoreau
For things to change, we must change.
Henry David Thoreau
I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.
Henry David Thoreau
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
Henry David Thoreau
If you're familiar with a principle you don't have to be familiar with all of its applications.
Henry David Thoreau
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
Compliments and flattery oftenest excite my contempt by the pretension they imply for who is he that assumes to flatter me? To compliment often implies an assumption of superiority in the complimenter. It is, in fact, a subtle detraction.
Henry David Thoreau
The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.
Henry David Thoreau
...how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!
Henry David Thoreau
I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known.
Henry David Thoreau
For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.
Henry David Thoreau
If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even insanity, it may lead him and yet that way, as he grows more resolute and faithful, his road lies.
Henry David Thoreau
As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as the work of today is present, so some flitting perspectives and demi-experiencesof the life that is in nature are in time veritably future, or rather outside of time, perennial, young, divine, in the wind and rain which never die.
Henry David Thoreau
Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.
Henry David Thoreau
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
Most men cry better than they speak. You get more nurture out of them by pinching than addressing them.
Henry David Thoreau
Continued traveling is far from productive. It begins with wearing away the soles of the shoes, and making the feet sore, and erelong it will wear a man clean up, after making his heart sore into the bargain. I have observed that the afterlife of those who have traveled much is very pathetic.
Henry David Thoreau
In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment to toe that line.
Henry David Thoreau
We must love our friend so much that she shall be associated with our purest and holiest thoughts alone.
Henry David Thoreau
