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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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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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Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Long
Errors
Displaced
Sorrow
Dwell
Soon
Offense
Forget
Somewhat
Upon
Repentance
Free
Add
Cannot
Originals
Better
Original
Misdemeanors

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A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is a fitter color than white for a man,--a denizen of the woods. The pale white man! I do not wonder that the African pitied him.
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Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.
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The poet's body even is not fed like other men's, but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of the gods, and lives adivine life. By the healthful and invigorating thrills of inspiration his life is preserved to a serene old age.
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A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate in its nature between land and sky.
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As for doing good that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.
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It will always be found that one flourishing institution exists and battens on another mouldering one. The Present itself is parasitic to this extent.
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The husbandman is always a better Greek than the scholar is prepared to appreciate, and the old custom still survives, while antiquarians and scholars grow gray in commemorating it.
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I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.
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Every man casts a shadow not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?
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Spring-an experience in immortality.
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Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.
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Look not to legislatures and churches for your guidance, nor to any soulless incorporated bodies, but to inspirited or inspired ones.
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As naturally as the oak bears an acorn and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done.
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We do not live by justice, but by grace.
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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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I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.
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When I would go a-visiting, I find that I go off the fashionable street,--not being inclined to change my dress,--to where man meets man, and not polished shoe meets shoe.
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Beside some philosophers of larger vision, Carlyle stands like an honest, half-despairing boy, grasping at some details only of their world systems.
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Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic.
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How many fine thoughts has every man had! How few fine thoughts are expressed!
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