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If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.

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
Upon
Disobedience
Another
Contemplation
May
Shoulders
Firsts
Pursue
First
Pursuit
Must
Sitting
Contemplations
Men
Least
Pursuits
Life
Wisdom
Devote

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I found that they knew but little of the history of their race, and could be entertained by stories about their ancestors as readily as any way .
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Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and Spring.
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At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house.
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In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead.
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The only government that I recognize--and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army--is that power thatestablishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice.
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The scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher truth for the calluses on his palms. They give firmness to the sentence. Indeed, the mind never makes a great and successful effort, without a corresponding energy of the body.
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A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book.
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All things in this world must be seen with youthful, hopeful eyes.
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It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to their minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them off from their present pursuit.
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Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
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I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also.
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I derive no pleasure from talking with a young woman simply because she has regular features.
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Count your age with friends but not with years.
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When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable.
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You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.
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What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!
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Methinks I am never quite committed, never wholly the creature of my moods, but always to some extent their critic. My only integral experience is in my vision. I see, perchance, with more integrity than I feel.
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Write while the heat is in you.
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He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach.
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We have built for this world a family mansion, and the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten.
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