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Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

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
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Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Exist
Amend
Shall
Succeeded
Law
Disobedience
Obey
Unjust
Endeavor
Content
Laws
Transgress

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Be not anxious to avoid poverty. In this way the wealth of the universe may be securely invested.
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Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventure. Let the noon find you by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.
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Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towardsrecognizing and organizing the rights of man?
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Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.
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The Great Snow! How cheerful it is to hear of!
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It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business.
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That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.
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Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.
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Love is the profoundest of secrets. Divulged, even to the beloved, it is no longer Love. As if it were merely I that loved you. When love ceases, then it is divulged.
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Water is a pioneer which the settler follows, taking advantage of its improvements.
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Be resolutely and faithfully what you are be humbly what you aspire to be.
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Many men walk by day few walk by night. It is a different season.
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You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.
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It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
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There are sure to be two prescriptions diametrically opposite.
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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.
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