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How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

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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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Become
Cricket
Earthworms
Earth
Remind
Smacks
Time
Grave
Foretaste
People
Immortality
Crickets
Graves
Earthy
Aging
Mole
Wisdom
Moles
Age
Smack
Moldy

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest. They are spoken firmly and conclusively,as if the speaker had a right to know what he says, and if not wise, they have at least been well learned.
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The monster is never just there where we think he is. What is truly monstrous is our cowardice and sloth.
Henry David Thoreau
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When a shadow flits across the landscape of the soul where is the substance?
Henry David Thoreau
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Indeed, the Englishman's history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.
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When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable today.
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Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances will avail.... It is a drama in which the parties have no part to act.
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Fishing has been styled 'a contemplative man's recreation,' ... and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.
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Undoubtedly, in the most brilliant successes, the first rank is always sacrificed.
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It is not when I am going to meet him, but when I am just turning away and leaving him alone, that I discover what God is. I say, God. I am not sure that that is the name. You will know what I mean.
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I think it would be worth the while to introduce a school of children to such [an oak grove], that they may get an idea of the primitive oaks before they are all gone, instead of hiring botanists to lecture to them when it is too late.
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A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government.
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Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
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One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors for to dwell long upon them is to add to the offense, and repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by somewhat better, and which is as free and original as if they had not been.
Henry David Thoreau
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The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village day.
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I say, break the law.
Henry David Thoreau
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Don't spend your time in drilling soldiers, who may turn out hirelings after all, but give to undrilled peasantry a country to fight for.
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It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks of science, where they merely refit for this world, and no natural currents concur to individualize them.
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Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
Henry David Thoreau
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With wisdom we shall learn liberality.
Henry David Thoreau
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Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you'll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books. And then you'll be in as much trouble as I am!
Henry David Thoreau