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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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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Personified
Amiable
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Respect
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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All the moral laws are readily translated into natural philosophy, for often we have only to restore the primitive meaning of thewords by which they are expressed, or to attend to their literal instead of their metaphorical sense. They are already supernatural philosophy.
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The universe is wider than our views of it.
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Decay and disease are often beautiful, like the pearly tear of the shellfish and the hectic glow of consumption.
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The only free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee. They have tunneled under the whole breadth of the land.
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The philosopher's conception of things will, above all, be truer than other men's, and his philosophy will subordinate all the circumstances of life. To live like a philosopher is to live, not foolishly, like other men, but wisely and according to universal laws.
Henry David Thoreau
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Some do not walk at all others walk in the highways a few walk across lots.
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There are secret articles in our treaties with the gods, of more importance than all the rest, which the historian can never know.
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What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator.
Henry David Thoreau
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Today you may write a chapter on the advantages of traveling, and tomorrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not traveling.
Henry David Thoreau
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A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book.
Henry David Thoreau
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Literary gentlemen, editors, and critics think that they know how to write, because they have studied grammar and rhetoric but they are egregiously mistaken. The art of composition is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an infinitely greater force behind them.
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The question is not what you look at – but how you look & whether you see.
Henry David Thoreau
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The improved means to the unimproved end.
Henry David Thoreau
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Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.
Henry David Thoreau
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The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body.
Henry David Thoreau
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Nature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.
Henry David Thoreau
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Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves.
Henry David Thoreau
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Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eye.
Henry David Thoreau
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The Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Nile,... the Rocky Mountains, the Himmaleh, and Mountains of the Moon, have a kind of personal importance in the annals of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
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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.
Henry David Thoreau