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. . . we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

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
Men
Afterward
Disobedience
Subjects
Respect
Firsts
First

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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A temple, you know, was anciently an open place without a roof, whose walls served merely to shut out the world and direct the mind toward heaven but a modern meeting-house shuts out the heavens, while it crowds the world into still closer quarters.
Henry David Thoreau
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We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.
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To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health.
Henry David Thoreau
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Undoubtedly, in the most brilliant successes, the first rank is always sacrificed.
Henry David Thoreau
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The fishermen say that the thundering of the pond scares the fishes and prevents their biting.
Henry David Thoreau
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Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau
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Keep up the fires of thought, and all will go well.
Henry David Thoreau
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I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many pleasures which he will not know!
Henry David Thoreau
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Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
Henry David Thoreau
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We seem to think that the earth must go through the ordeal of sheep-pasturage before it is habitable by man.
Henry David Thoreau
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We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.
Henry David Thoreau
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Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East -- to know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them -- who were above such trifling.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual atmosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our most illuminatedmoments are.
Henry David Thoreau
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Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
Henry David Thoreau
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All men recognize the right of revolution that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
Henry David Thoreau
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In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment to toe that line.
Henry David Thoreau
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Time & Co. are, after all, the only quite honest and trustworthy publishers that we know.
Henry David Thoreau
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The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.
Henry David Thoreau
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As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle but I think that I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made.
Henry David Thoreau
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Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.
Henry David Thoreau