Quote

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

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
Four
Solitude
Commonly
Hours
Absolutely
Engagement
Free
Fields
Worldly
Spirit
Spend
Spirits
Nature
Walking
Preserve
Cannot
Unless
Preserves
Think
Health
Hills
Engagements
Thinking
Least
Woods
Sauntering

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Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
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In the religion of all nations a purity is hinted at, which, I fear, men never attain to.
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There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still.
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It is the man determines what is said, not the words.
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Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.
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If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
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I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.
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If to chaffer and higgle are bad in trade, they are much worse in Love. It demands directness as of an arrow.
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Let us not play at kittly-benders. There is a solid bottom everywhere.
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News Coverage!! As news expose rather than cover events.
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A person who chooses to die or to risk death demonstrates that there are values, principles, maxims, that are more valuable to him than is life itself. In short, he places his immortal self above his mortal self. Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.
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Though the hen should sit all day, she could lay only one egg, and, besides, would not have picked up materials for another.
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For a man to act himself, he must be perfectly free otherwise he is in danger of losing all sense of responsibility or of self- respect.
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Every poet has trembled on the verge of science.
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Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid.
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I do not know how to distinguish between waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?
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I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place I sympathize with one of my neighbors, an old man, who has not been there since the last war, when he was compelled to go. No, I have a real genius for staying at home.
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See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
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