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Men go to a fire for entertainment. When I see how eagerly men will run to a fire, whether in warm or in cold weather, by day or by night, dragging an engine at their heels, I'm astonished to perceive how good a purpose the level of excitement is made to serve.

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
Running
Warm
Astonished
Night
Serve
Engine
Made
Level
Engines
Good
Cold
Heels
Men
Levels
Excitement
Fire
Perceive
Purpose
Weather
Eagerly
Whether
Entertainment
Dragging

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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We are born as innocents. We are polluted by advice.
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We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect. [So why not suspect good rather than bad in events, people and life and thereby find it more?]
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Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made.
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In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify.
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Let a man take time enough for the most trivial deed, though it be but the paring of his nails. The buds swell imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion,--as if the short spring days were an eternity.
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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.
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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.
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Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.
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Don't be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.
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Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.
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They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others.Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death.
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Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive.
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Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food
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Indeed, the Englishman's history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.
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The wisest man preaches no doctrines he has no scheme he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the heavens. It is clear sky.
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For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it.
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Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, 'I will simply be.
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Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
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New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion.
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I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who have understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,-who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering.
Henry David Thoreau