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Life is so short that it is not wise to take roundabout ways, nor can we spend much time in waiting.... We have not got half-way to dawn yet.
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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Autobiographer
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
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Naturalist
Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Life
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Waiting
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Dawn
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Nature is not made after such a fashion as we would have her. We piously exaggerate her wonders, as the scenery around our home.
Henry David Thoreau
Music is the sound of the universal laws promulgated. It is the only assured tone. There are in it such strains as far surpass anyman's faith in the loftiness of his destiny. Things are to be learned which it will be worth the while to learn.
Henry David Thoreau
The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor
Henry David Thoreau
There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hand. I love a broad margin to my life.
Henry David Thoreau
One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors for to dwell long upon them is to add to the offense, and repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by somewhat better, and which is as free and original as if they had not been.
Henry David Thoreau
The greatest and saddest defect is not credulity, but an habitual forgetfulness that our science is ignorance.
Henry David Thoreau
It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.
Henry David Thoreau
I saw a muskrat come out of a hole in the ice ... While I am looking at him, I am thinking what he is thinking of me. He is a different sort of man, that's all.
Henry David Thoreau
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
Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.
Henry David Thoreau
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
Henry David Thoreau
We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not.
Henry David Thoreau
I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account.
Henry David Thoreau
A journal, is a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy, what you are grateful for.
Henry David Thoreau
I am engaged to Concord and my own private pursuits by 10,000 ties, and it would be suicide to rend them.
Henry David Thoreau
The universe is wider than our views of it.
Henry David Thoreau
Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
Henry David Thoreau
The silence sings. It is musical. I remember a night when it was audible. I heard the unspeakable.
Henry David Thoreau
The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.
Henry David Thoreau
As a man thinks of himself, so he is.
Henry David Thoreau
