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I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.

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
Law
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Live
Make
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World
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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It is after we get home that we really go over the mountain, if ever.
Henry David Thoreau
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If to chaffer and higgle are bad in trade, they are much worse in Love. It demands directness as of an arrow.
Henry David Thoreau
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So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,--the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their good breeding respects only secondary objects.
Henry David Thoreau
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Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other.
Henry David Thoreau
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As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented.
Henry David Thoreau
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The Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the leopard his spots.
Henry David Thoreau
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A journal, is a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy, what you are grateful for.
Henry David Thoreau
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The schools begin with what they call the elements, and where do they end?
Henry David Thoreau
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The past is only so heroic as we see it. It is the canvas on which our idea of heroism is painted, and so, in one sense, the dim prospectus of our future field.
Henry David Thoreau
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We bless and curse ourselves.
Henry David Thoreau
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No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes: yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.
Henry David Thoreau
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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
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Be wary of technology it is often merely an improved means to an unimproved end.
Henry David Thoreau
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When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, [I] submit myself to my instinct to decide for me.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is not when I am going to meet him, but when I am just turning away and leaving him alone, that I discover what God is. I say, God. I am not sure that that is the name. You will know what I mean.
Henry David Thoreau
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Our taste is too delicate and particular. It says nay to the poet's work, but never yea to his hope.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have found all things thus far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons, strangely adapted to my resources.
Henry David Thoreau
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If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even insanity, it may lead him and yet that way, as he grows more resolute and faithful, his road lies.
Henry David Thoreau
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In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.
Henry David Thoreau
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There are some things which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept silent about. To the highest communications we only lend a silent ear.
Henry David Thoreau