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In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident.

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
Need
Property
Posterity
Needs
Fame
Founding
Even
State
Mortal
Family
Accident
Fear
Immortal
Truth
Mortals
Change
Dealing
Accumulating
States
Accidents
Acquiring

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.
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I have no designs on society, or nature, or God. I am simply what I am, or I begin to be that. I live in the present. I only remember the past, and anticipate the future. I love to live.
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True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.
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The lover wants no partiality. He says, Be so kind as to be just.
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Friends will be much apart. They will respect more each other's privacy than their communion.
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City life is millions of people being lonesome together.
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Our molting season, like that of the fouls, must be a crisis in our lives.
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It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning.
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As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they were held by any. We can tolerate all philosophies.... It is the attitude of these men, more than any communication which they make, that attracts us.
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Man wanted a home, a place for warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.
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My actual life is a fact, in view of which I have no occasion to congratulate myself but for my faith and aspiration I have respect. It is from these that I speak.
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Where is the unexplored land but in our own untried enterprises? To an adventurous spirit any place--London, New York, Worcester, or his own yard--is unexplored land, to seek which Frémont and Kane travel so far. To a sluggish and defeated spirit even the Great Basin and the Polaris are trivial places.
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Law never made men a whit more just and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
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We must look a long time before we can see
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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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In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is.
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Morning glory is the best name, it always refreshes me to see it.
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Nature is not made after such a fashion as we would have her. We piously exaggerate her wonders, as the scenery around our home.
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Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.
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It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain.
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