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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.

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
Wont
Keepers
Herds
Former
Much
Men
Think
Thinking
Freer

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What is religion? That which is never spoken.
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We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be.
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The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
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May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!
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The meeting of two eternities, the past and future....is precisely the present moment.
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I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.
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A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep.
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We should impart our courage and not our despair.
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Associate reverently, and as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.
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Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures.
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I have never met with a friend who furnished me sea-room. I have only tacked a few times and come to anchor - not sailed - made no voyage, carried no venture.
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I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.
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Not till we are completely lost, or turned round, do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature.
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We should seek to be fellow students with the pupil, and should learn of, as well as with him, if we would be most helpful to him.
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Fame is not just. She never finely or discriminatingly praises, but coarsely hurrahs.
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While some men believe in the infinite, some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.
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