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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.
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
Best
Spend
Men
Liberty
Least
Enjoy
Questionable
Lives
Earning
Money
Independence
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Valuable
Part
Parts
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.
Henry David Thoreau
The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well as its essence.
Henry David Thoreau
I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents.
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
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
Alas! the culture of an Irishman is an enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe.
Henry David Thoreau
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau
Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.
Henry David Thoreau
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
Henry David Thoreau
A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.
Henry David Thoreau
The virtue of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before does not begin to be superhuman.
Henry David Thoreau
A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that surround it.
Henry David Thoreau
I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.
Henry David Thoreau
A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority it is not even a minority then but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.
Henry David Thoreau
We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.
Henry David Thoreau
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau
If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone.
Henry David Thoreau
How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.
Henry David Thoreau
The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and generalizes their widest deductions.
Henry David Thoreau
You cannot hear music and noise at the same time.
Henry David Thoreau
