Quote

It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellowmen to have an interest in your enterprise.

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
Without
Thus
Begin
Perhaps
Courses
Course
Borrowing
Interest
Permit
Difficult
Enterprise
Money
Generous

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Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
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Art may varnish and gild, but it can do no more.
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Associate reverently, and as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.
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The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers.
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When you knock, ask to see God — none of the servants.
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I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.
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The theories and speculations of men concern us more than their puny accomplishment. It is with a certain coldness and languor that we loiter about the actual and so-called practical.
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How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.
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I think it would be worth the while to introduce a school of children to such [an oak grove], that they may get an idea of the primitive oaks before they are all gone, instead of hiring botanists to lecture to them when it is too late.
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At least let us have healthy books.
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The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own cast- off griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion.
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The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
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It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village to make any progress between his door and his gate.
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The body can feed the body only.
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I hear beyond the range of sound, I see beyond the range of sight, New earths and skies and seas around, And in my day the sun doth pale his light.
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As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole life.
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A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority it is not even a minority then but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.
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The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down.
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Simplify your life. Don't waste the years struggling for things that are unimportant. Don't burden yourself with possessions. Keep your needs and wants simple and enjoy what you have. Don't destroy your peace of mind by looking back, worrying about the past. Live in the present. Simplify!
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The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
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