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The question is whether you can bear freedom. At present the vast majority of men, whether white or black, require the discipline of labor which enslaves them for their own good.
Henry David Thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
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Autobiographer
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
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Naturalist
Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Black
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Labor
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Bear
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Man is but the place where I stand.
Henry David Thoreau
The oldest, wisest politician grows not more human so, but is merely a gray wharf rat at last.
Henry David Thoreau
Most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum - many for a glass of rum. Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!
Henry David Thoreau
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
A journal, is a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy, what you are grateful for.
Henry David Thoreau
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Henry David Thoreau
A slight sound at evening lifts me up by the ears, and makes life seem inexpressibly serene and grand. It may be Uranus, or it may be in the shutter.
Henry David Thoreau
When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis.
Henry David Thoreau
The greatest and saddest defect is not credulity, but an habitual forgetfulness that our science is ignorance.
Henry David Thoreau
Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eye.
Henry David Thoreau
Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves. . . .
Henry David Thoreau
Somehow strangely the vice of men gets well represented and protected but their virtue has none to plead its cause - nor any charter of immunities and rights.
Henry David Thoreau
To be awake is to be alive.
Henry David Thoreau
With wisdom we shall learn liberality.
Henry David Thoreau
Bribed with a little sunlight and a few prismatic tints, we bless our Maker, and stave off his wrath with hymns.
Henry David Thoreau
I love man-kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead unkind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the last codicil and letter. They rule this world, and the living are but their executors. Such foundation too have our lectures and our sermons, commonly.
Henry David Thoreau
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
If we cannot sing of faith and triumph, we will sing our despair. We will be that kind of bird. There are day owls, and there arenight owls, and each is beautiful and even musical while about its business.
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
Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.
Henry David Thoreau
