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I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out of it. I have altogether too much patience of this kind.

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
Made
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Kind
Patience
Never
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Poet
Poetry
Chagrin
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Goethe
Well
Altogether
Much
Poem

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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It is not when I am going to meet him, but when I am just turning away and leaving him alone, that I discover what God is. I say, God. I am not sure that that is the name. You will know what I mean.
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Truly, our greatest blessings are very cheap.
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We cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto.
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All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.
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Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
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Friends are made for caring and sharing. Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.
Henry David Thoreau
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There is all the poetry in the world in a name. It is a poem which the mass of men hear and read. What is poetry in the common sense, but a hearing of such jingling names? I want nothing better than a good word. The name of a thing may easily be more than the thing itself to me.
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It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.
Henry David Thoreau
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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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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
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Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.
Henry David Thoreau
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With all your science can you tell me how it is, and when it is, that light comes into the soul?
Henry David Thoreau
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How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seedtime of character?
Henry David Thoreau
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All good things are cheap: all bad are very dear.
Henry David Thoreau
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Are you in want of amusement nowadays? Then play a little at the game of getting a living. There was never anything equal to it. Do it temperately, though, and don't sweat.
Henry David Thoreau
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If you are chosen town clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer but you may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless.
Henry David Thoreau
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I know of no redeeming qualities in myself but a sincere love for some things, and when I am reproved I fall back on to this ground.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is strange to talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.
Henry David Thoreau
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Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep.
Henry David Thoreau
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The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what we do and yet how much is not done by us!
Henry David Thoreau