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Why should not our whole life and its scenery be actually thus fair and distinct? All our lives want a suitable background. They should at least, like the life of the anchorite, be as impressive to behold as objects in a desert, a broken shaft or crumbling mound against a limitless horizon.

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
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Like
Thus
Impressive
Shaft
Objects
Background
Mound
Broken
Horizon
Crumbling
Least
Backgrounds
Scenery
Actually
Desert
Behold
Lives
Fairs
Suitable
Whole
Solitude
Distinct
Life
Fair
Limitless

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One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation another in his manners, and enjoys a good one.
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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?
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The gods are partial to no era, but steadily shines their light in the heavens, while the eye of the beholder is turned to stone.There was but the sun and the eye from the first. The ages have not added a new ray to the one, nor altered a fibre of the other.
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Being a teacher is like being in jail once it's on your record, you can never get rid of it.
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Do not read the newspapers.
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If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
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Some simple dishes recommend themselves to our imaginations as well as palates.
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Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other.
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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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Real power is measured by how much you can let things be.
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Two thousand summers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian literature, as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal tint, for they have carried their own serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to protect them against the corrosion of time.
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All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.
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I want the flower and fruit of a man that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse.
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Men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.
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In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is.
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We cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto.
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There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon.
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Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case.
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I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is travelling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated fromlong housekeeping, which he has not the courage to burn.
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They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others.Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death.
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