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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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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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There is one consolation in being sick and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.
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It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business.
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I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.
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What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground.
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Do what you love. Know your own bone gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
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We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads,--and then we can hardly see anything else.
Henry David Thoreau
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The golden mean in ethics, as in physics, is the centre of the system and that about which all revolve, and though to a distant and plodding planet it be an uttermost extreme, yet one day, when that planet's year is completed, it will be found to be central.
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We have built for this world a family mansion, and the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten.
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Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food
Henry David Thoreau
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For a man to act himself, he must be perfectly free otherwise he is in danger of losing all sense of responsibility or of self- respect.
Henry David Thoreau
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There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
Henry David Thoreau
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I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust.
Henry David Thoreau
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There must be the... generating force of Love behind every effort destined to be successful.
Henry David Thoreau
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The poet is he who can write some pure mythology today without the aid of posterity.
Henry David Thoreau
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What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,--for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.
Henry David Thoreau
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Men have become the tools of their tools.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks of science, where they merely refit for this world, and no natural currents concur to individualize them.
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Books that are books are all that you want, and there are but a half dozen in any thousand.
Henry David Thoreau
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We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.
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