Quote

The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective.

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
Play
Thin
Noiseless
Life
Effective
Nautical
Like
Boat
Labors
Hardest
Noisy
Labor
Impatient
Least
Pulse
Full
Sailing
Lives
Sail

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But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself.
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If you chance to live and move and have your being in that thin stratum in which the events that make the news transpire,--thinnerthan the paper on which it is printed,--then these things will fill the world for you but if you soar above or dive below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them.
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I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.
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Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.
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Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference.
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What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.
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All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
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The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it.
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Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather.
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A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep.
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