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Give me the old familiar world, post-office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten.

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
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Ever
Familiar
Self
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Beaten
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.
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The violence of love is as much to be dreaded as that of hate.
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There is not so good an understanding between any two, but the exposure by the one of a serious fault in the other will produce a misunderstanding in proportion to its heinousness.
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Eastward I go only by force but westward I go free.
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It is after we get home that we really go over the mountain, if ever.
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Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
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For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.
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How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?
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The hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea.
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It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment. If we have the largest boulder in the county, then it should not belong to an individual, nor be made into door-steps.
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When a shadow flits across the landscape of the soul where is the substance?
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Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you'll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books. And then you'll be in as much trouble as I am!
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A man sees only what concerns him.... How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to different departments of knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at objects!
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A man can suffocate on courtesy.
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Especially the transcendental philosophy needs the leaven of humor to render it light and digestible.
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Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.
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When a man truly commits, the universe will conspire to assure his success.
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It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart it being much more sensitive.
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The mason asks but a narrow shelf to spring his brick from man requires only an infinitely narrower one to spring his arch of faith from.
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One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation another in his manners, and enjoys a good one.
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