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Nothing more strikingly betrays the credulity of mankind than medicine. Quackery is a thing universal, and universally successful. In this case it becomes literally true that no imposition is too great for the credulity of men.

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
Men
Mankind
Imposition
Cases
Credulity
Becomes
Universally
Successful
Betray
True
Literally
Strikingly
Nothing
Medicine
Quackery
Great
Case
Quacks
Thing
Universal
Betrays

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It is pitiful when a man bears a name for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame.
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We never conceive the greatness of our fates.
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It is but too easy to establish another durable and harmonious routine. Immediately all parts of nature consent to it. Only make something to take the place of something, and men will behave as if it was the very thing they wanted.
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Read not the Times, read the Eternities.
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Do what you love. Know your own bone gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
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The walls that fence our fields, as well as modern Rome, and not less the Parthenon itself, are all built of ruins.
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The only way to speak the truth is to speak lovingly.
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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.
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Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it.
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By what a delicate and far-stretched contribution every island is made! What an enterprise of nature thus to lay the foundations of and to build up the future continent, of golden and silver sands and the ruins of forests, with ant-like industry.
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Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
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There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law.
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All men recognize the right of revolution that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
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Of what significance are the things you can forget.
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Oh to reach the point of death and realize one has not lived at all.
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Simplicity is the peak of civilization.
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To the man who cherishes a secret in his breast, there is a still greater secret unexplored. Our most indifferent acts may be a matter for secrecy, but whatever we do with the utmost truthfulness and integrity, by virtue of its pureness, must be transparent as light.
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