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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.

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
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Articles
Historian
Gods
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Treaties

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Spring. March fans it, April christens it, and May puts on its jacket and trousers.
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These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live. If this man's acts and words do not create a revival, it will be the severest possible satire on the acts and words that do. It is the best news that America has ever heard.... How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to live for!
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While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.
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Men go to a fire for entertainment. When I see how eagerly men will run to a fire, whether in warm or in cold weather, by day or by night, dragging an engine at their heels, I'm astonished to perceive how good a purpose the level of excitement is made to serve.
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The tree of Knowledge is a Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.
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Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.
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The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to see himself.
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When my legs begin to move, the thoughts begin to flow.
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If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.
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I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place I sympathize with one of my neighbors, an old man, who has not been there since the last war, when he was compelled to go. No, I have a real genius for staying at home.
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How can he remember well his ignorance - which his growth requires - who has so often to use his knowledge?
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A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.
Henry David Thoreau
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Even in civilized communities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of development.
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How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?
Henry David Thoreau
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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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Love your life, poor as it is.
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The universe expects every man to do his duty in his parallel of latitude.
Henry David Thoreau
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The kindness I have longest remembered has been of this sort, the sort unsaid so far behind the speaker's lips that almost it already lay in my heart. It did not have far to go to be communicated.
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Go confidently ... Live the life that you imagined.
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Everything counts for gain when we are cosmically awake. Nothing counts, unless we are awake. No enjoyments last, no successes satisfy, no gains have meaning unless accomplished in a state of wakefulness.
Henry David Thoreau