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The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.
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
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Mass
Degrades
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Degrade
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Lowest
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Comes
Standard
Best
Psychology
Never
Contrary
Standards
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society.
Henry David Thoreau
A man sits as many risks as he runs.
Henry David Thoreau
Let go of the past and live the future . . . Live the life you imagined.
Henry David Thoreau
The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?
Henry David Thoreau
I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.
Henry David Thoreau
In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is.
Henry David Thoreau
Unlike the Concord, the Merrimack is not a dead but a living stream, though it has less life within its waters and on its banks. It has a swift current, and, in this part of its course, a clayey bottom, almost no weeds, and comparatively few fishes.
Henry David Thoreau
They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy evil, that they may no longer have have it to regret.
Henry David Thoreau
Keep up the fires of thought, and all will go well.
Henry David Thoreau
It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her.
Henry David Thoreau
I do not believe there are eight hundred human beings on the globe.
Henry David Thoreau
Be not merely good. Be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau
Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towardsrecognizing and organizing the rights of man?
Henry David Thoreau
To say that God has given a man many and great talents frequently means that he has brought his heavens down within reach of his hands.
Henry David Thoreau
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
Henry David Thoreau
What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary?
Henry David Thoreau
How to extract its honey from the flower of the world. That is my everyday business. I am as busy as a bee about it. I ramble over fields on that errand and am never so happy as when I feel myself heavy with honey and wax. I am like a bee searching the livelong day for the sweets of nature.
Henry David Thoreau
...how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!
Henry David Thoreau
Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God's property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.
Henry David Thoreau