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The prosaic man sees things badly, or with the bodily sense but the poet sees them clad in beauty, with the spiritual sense.

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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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Men
Badly
Sees
Gratitude
Poet
Beauty
Spiritual
Prosaic
Sense
Clad
Things
Bodily

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons.
Henry David Thoreau
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We are all of us more or less active physiognomists.
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I saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul look out upon me. I saw where it was born deep down under feathers and fur, or condemned for a while to roam four-footed among the brambles,I caught the clinging mute glance of the prisoner and swore that I would be faithful.
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If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates a rottenness at the foundation of our community.
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A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.
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Books are for the most part willfully and hastily written, as parts of a system to supply a want real or imagined.
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The Slothful do not have the time to become virtuous or despicable.
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The Oriental philosophy approaches easily loftier themes than the modern aspires to and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about them. It only assigns their due rank respectively to Action and Contemplation, or rather does full justice to the latter. Western philosophers have not conceived of the significance of Contemplation in their sense.
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I love the broad margin to my life.
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Trade and commerce, if they were not made of Indian rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way.
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Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.
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All things in this world must be seen with youthful, hopeful eyes.
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The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show.
Henry David Thoreau
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I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men. The former are so much the freer.
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It is the man determines what is said, not the words.
Henry David Thoreau
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What great interval is there between him who is caught in Africa and made a plantation slave of in the South, and him who is caught in New England and made a Unitarian minister of?
Henry David Thoreau
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That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the United States generally, any more than to Patagonia.
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Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
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Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!
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We cannot well do without our sins they are the highway of our virtue.
Henry David Thoreau