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Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

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
Poet
Translator
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Cutting
Convince
Wonder
Preparation
Belief
Seeds
Though
Plant
Faith
Garden
Great
Expect
Wonders
Believe
Prepared
Gardening
Spring
Seed

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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I see less difference between a city and a swamp than formerly.
Henry David Thoreau
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I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.
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The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own cast- off griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion.
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You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere for that will leaven the whole lump.
Henry David Thoreau
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I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men. The former are so much the freer.
Henry David Thoreau
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Some have asked if the stock of men could not be improved,--if they could not be bred as cattle. Let Love be purified, and all therest will follow. A pure love is thus, indeed, the panacea for all the ills of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
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Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her.
Henry David Thoreau
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Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are.
Henry David Thoreau
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In the planting of the seeds of most trees, the best gardeners do no more than follow Nature, though they may not know it.
Henry David Thoreau
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Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character.
Henry David Thoreau
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The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must bestripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living laid for a foundation.
Henry David Thoreau
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I say, break the law.
Henry David Thoreau
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The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men.
Henry David Thoreau
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In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
Henry David Thoreau
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I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.
Henry David Thoreau
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A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that surround it.
Henry David Thoreau
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Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Henry David Thoreau
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Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.
Henry David Thoreau
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The violence of love is as much to be dreaded as that of hate.
Henry David Thoreau