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Instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.
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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Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Study
Baskets
Rather
Studying
Make
Studied
Men
Necessity
Selling
Avoid
Worth
Instead
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life! Indeed, the unchallenged bravery which these studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the warrior.
Henry David Thoreau
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.
Henry David Thoreau
Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.
Henry David Thoreau
Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference.
Henry David Thoreau
If I thought that I could speak with discrimination and impartiality of the nations of Christendom, I should praise them, but it tasks me too much. They seem to be the most civil and humane, but I may be mistaken.
Henry David Thoreau
There may be something petty in a refined taste it easily degenerates into effeminacy. It does not consider the broadest use. It is not content with simple good and bad, and so is fastidious and curious or nice only.
Henry David Thoreau
Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.
Henry David Thoreau
Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month's labor in the farmer's almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
Henry David Thoreau
If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, But what shall I do? my answer is, If you really wish to do anything, resign your office. When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.
Henry David Thoreau
Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
Henry David Thoreau
A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.
Henry David Thoreau
Think for yourself, or others will think for you without thinking of you.
Henry David Thoreau
Life is grand, and so are its environments of Past and Future. Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man's destiny were not equally so?
Henry David Thoreau
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Henry David Thoreau
It is not worth the while to live by rich cookery.
Henry David Thoreau
We slander the hyena man is the fiercest and cruelest animal.
Henry David Thoreau
I have seen some whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to former indulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt children, and at length gave them no peace. They did not know when to swallow their cud, and their lives of course yielded no milk.
Henry David Thoreau
As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on mankind.
Henry David Thoreau
It is a momentous fact that a man may be good, or he may be bad his life may be true, or it may be false it may be either a shame or a glory to him. The good man builds himself up the bad man destroys himself.
Henry David Thoreau
