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A man receives only what he is ready to receive... The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest of what he has observed, he does not observe.

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
Cannot
Phenomenon
Doe
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Science
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Observe

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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Beside some philosophers of larger vision, Carlyle stands like an honest, half-despairing boy, grasping at some details only of their world systems.
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Surely one may as profitably be soaked in the juices of a swamp for one day as pick his way dry-shod over sand. Cold and damp ? are they not as rich experience as warmth and dryness?
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Say, Not so, and you will out circle the philosophers.
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I found that they knew but little of the history of their race, and could be entertained by stories about their ancestors as readily as any way .
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I do not know how to distinguish between waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?
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In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial.
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This bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above the tinkling of the forge... It remains to remind us of aboriginal nature.
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Men spend the best parts of their lives earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.
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As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this country.
Henry David Thoreau
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We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always.
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My enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all woodchucks.
Henry David Thoreau
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Duty is one and invariable it requires no impossibilities, nor can it ever be disregarded with impunity.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable but my friend is my amiableness personified.
Henry David Thoreau
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Endeavor to live the life you have imagined.
Henry David Thoreau
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As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
Henry David Thoreau
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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
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What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.
Henry David Thoreau
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Art may varnish and gild, but it can do no more.
Henry David Thoreau
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When I would re-create myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter as a sacred place, a Sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, of Nature.
Henry David Thoreau
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I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
Henry David Thoreau