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As for doing good that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.

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
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Good
Constitution
Moreover
Life
Seem
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Doe
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May
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Professions

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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It is tranquil people who accomplish much.
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Who hears the fishes when they cry?
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The fire is the main comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter, and is about as ample at one season as at another. It is as well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness.
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All sensuality is one, though it takes many forms all purity is one. It is the same whether a man eat, or drink, or cohabit, or sleep sensually. They are but one appetite, and we only need to see a person do any one of these things to know how great a sensualist he is. The impure can neither stand nor sit with purity.
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We find it difficult to choose our direction because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.
Henry David Thoreau
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I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them.
Henry David Thoreau
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Read not the Times, read the Eternities.
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Under the one word house are included the schoolhouse, the almshouse, the jail, the tavern, the dwellinghouse and the meanest shed or cave in which men live contains elements of all these. But nowhere on the earth stands the entire and perfect house.
Henry David Thoreau
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Lose the world, get lost in it, and find your soul.
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It is as hard to see one's self as to look backwards without turning around.
Henry David Thoreau
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Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have not read far in the statutes of this Commonwealth. It is not profitable reading. They do not always say what is true and they do not always mean what they say.
Henry David Thoreau
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Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
Henry David Thoreau
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Fame itself is but an epitaph as late, as false, as true.
Henry David Thoreau
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I should say that the useful results of science had accumulated, but that there had been no accumulation of knowledge, strictly speaking, for posterity for knowledge is to be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can interpret another's experience only by his own.
Henry David Thoreau
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Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics.
Henry David Thoreau
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If you would be chaste, you must be temperate.
Henry David Thoreau
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We cannot well do without our sins they are the highway of our virtue.
Henry David Thoreau
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After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.
Henry David Thoreau
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As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they were held by any. We can tolerate all philosophies.... It is the attitude of these men, more than any communication which they make, that attracts us.
Henry David Thoreau