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If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui.

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
Getting
Regulating
Lasts
Ennui
Last
Troubled
Lives
Mode
Living
According
Best
Indeed
Always
Labor
Never
Learned

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As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they were held by any. We can tolerate all philosophies.... It is the attitude of these men, more than any communication which they make, that attracts us.
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I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also.
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Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.
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For things to change, we must change.
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But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the severest satire.... The greater the genius, the keener the edge of the satire.
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It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the restless class of Reformers. What if these grievances exist? So do you and I.
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Endeavor to live the life you have imagined.
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The authority of government . . . can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.
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That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
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We hate the kindness which we understand.
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The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man.
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If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man--not to make any invidious comparison--is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.... Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet.
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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
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An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
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How many things are now at loose ends! Who knows which way the wind will blow tomorrow?
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Some do not walk at all others walk in the highways a few walk across lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead.
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For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it (life), whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to 'glorify God and enjoy him forever.'
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Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe.
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One who knew how to appropriate the true value of this world would be the poorest man in it. The poor rich man! all he has is whathe has bought.
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The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not.
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