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Those who work much do not work hard.
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
Hard
Work
Much
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
I am amused to see from my window here how busily a man has divided and staked off his domain. God must smile at his puny fences running hither and thither everywhere over the land.
Henry David Thoreau
As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole life.
Henry David Thoreau
The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and spell.
Henry David Thoreau
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
Henry David Thoreau
Biography, too, is liable to the same objection it should be autobiography. Let us not, as the Germans advise, endeavor to go abroad and vex our bowels that we may be somebody else to explain him. If I am not I, who will be?
Henry David Thoreau
Every sunset I witness inspires me with the desire to go to West as distant and as fair as that which the sun goes down. Eastward I go only by force but westward I go free.
Henry David Thoreau
The Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the leopard his spots.
Henry David Thoreau
Men are probably nearer the essential truth in their superstitions than in their science.
Henry David Thoreau
When you knock, ask to see God — none of the servants.
Henry David Thoreau
I have climbed several higher mountains without guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that it takes only more time and patience commonly than to travel the smoothest highway.
Henry David Thoreau
Why does it [government] always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?
Henry David Thoreau
In the love of narrow souls I make many short voyages but in vain-I find no sea room-but in great souls I sail before the wind without a watch, and never reach the shore.
Henry David Thoreau
It is strange to talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.
Henry David Thoreau
There is no ill which may not be dissipated, like the dark, if you let in a stronger light upon it.
Henry David Thoreau
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.
Henry David Thoreau
That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living.
Henry David Thoreau
When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.
Henry David Thoreau
The husbandman is always a better Greek than the scholar is prepared to appreciate, and the old custom still survives, while antiquarians and scholars grow gray in commemorating it.
Henry David Thoreau
The press is, almost without exception, corrupt.
Henry David Thoreau