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I have climbed several higher mountains without guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that it takes only more time and patience commonly than to travel the smoothest highway.

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
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Henry D. Thoreau
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I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled through a mud-puddle he comes out honor-bright from behind every storm. Let us then take sides with the sun, seeing we have so much leisure.
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There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill.
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Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction.
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Water is a pioneer which the settler follows, taking advantage of its improvements.
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The man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.
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Law never made men a whit more just and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
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Let go of the past and go for the future.
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The same law that shapes the earth-star shapes the snow-star. As surely as the petals of a flower are fixed, each of these countless snow-stars comes whirling to earth...these glorious spangles, the sweeping of heaven's floor.
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When a shadow flits across the landscape of the soul where is the substance?
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No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?
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I once found a kernel of corn in the middle of a deep wood by Walden, tucked in behind a lichen on a pine, about as high as my head, either by a crow or a squirrel. It was a mile at least from any corn-field.
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As for health, consider yourself well.
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The vessel, though her masts be firm,Beneath her copper bears a worm.
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I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a Freedom and Culture merely civil, - to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.
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No doubt another may also think for me but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.
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The imagination never forgets it is a re-membering. It is not foundationless, but most reasonable, and it alone uses all the knowledge of the intellect.
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To watch this crystal globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another.
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He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to utter truth.
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So long as a man is faithful to himself, everything is in his favor, government, society, the very sun, moon, and stars.
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