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Letter-writing too often degenerates into a communicating of facts, and not of truths of other men's deeds and not our thoughts.What are the convulsions of a planet, compared with the emotions of the soul? or the rising of a thousand suns, if that is not enlightened by a ray?

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
Translator
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Soul
Communication
Truths
Writing
Planets
Enlightened
Convulsions
Men
Sun
Rising
Suns
Thoughts
Deeds
Degenerates
Thousand
Emotions
Communicating
Emotion
Communicate
Rays
Often
Letters
Letter
Facts
Planet
Compared

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.
Henry David Thoreau
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As I love nature, as I love singing birds...I love thee, my friend.
Henry David Thoreau
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Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. ... Shall we always study to obtain more, and not sometimes be content with less?
Henry David Thoreau
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Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man.
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As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented.
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Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
Henry David Thoreau
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For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.
Henry David Thoreau
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It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment. If we have the largest boulder in the county, then it should not belong to an individual, nor be made into door-steps.
Henry David Thoreau
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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
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God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.
Henry David Thoreau
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Music never stops it is only the listening that is intermittent.
Henry David Thoreau
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The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.
Henry David Thoreau
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A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.
Henry David Thoreau
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A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed.
Henry David Thoreau
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A temple, you know, was anciently an open place without a roof, whose walls served merely to shut out the world and direct the mind toward heaven but a modern meeting-house shuts out the heavens, while it crowds the world into still closer quarters.
Henry David Thoreau
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Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?
Henry David Thoreau
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Real power is measured by how much you can let things be.
Henry David Thoreau
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You must ascend a mountain to learn your relation to matter, and so to your own body, for it is at home there, though you are not.
Henry David Thoreau
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If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life.
Henry David Thoreau
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My Friend is that one whom I can associate with my choicest thought.
Henry David Thoreau