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But labor of the hands, even when pursued to the verge of drudgery, is perhaps never the worst form of idleness. It has a constantand imperishable moral, and to the scholar it yields a classic result.
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
Even
Result
Drudgery
Never
Labor
Yields
Perhaps
Verge
Worst
Idleness
Results
Pursued
Moral
Scholar
Hands
Yield
Form
Classic
Imperishable
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Music is perpetual, and only the hearing is intermittent.
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He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behaviour as well as application.
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I do not judge men by anything they can do. Their greatest deed is the impression they make on me.
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So far as my experience goes, travelers generally exaggerate the difficulties of the way. Like most evil, the difficulty is imaginary for what's the hurry?
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Continued traveling is far from productive. It begins with wearing away the soles of the shoes, and making the feet sore, and erelong it will wear a man clean up, after making his heart sore into the bargain. I have observed that the afterlife of those who have traveled much is very pathetic.
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There is all the poetry in the world in a name. It is a poem which the mass of men hear and read. What is poetry in the common sense, but a hearing of such jingling names? I want nothing better than a good word. The name of a thing may easily be more than the thing itself to me.
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As our domestic fowls are said to have their original in the wild pheasant of India, so our domestic thoughts have their prototypes in the thoughts of her philosophers.
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I do not know how to distinguish between waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?
Henry David Thoreau
All things in this world must be seen with youthful, hopeful eyes.
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The pleasures of the intellect are permanent, the pleasures of the heart are transitory.
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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
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
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Do not suffer your life to be taken by newspapers.
Henry David Thoreau
As they say in geology, time never fails, there is always enough of it, so I may say, criticism never fails.
Henry David Thoreau
The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.
Henry David Thoreau
We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very little of it has yet been sung. The ancients had a juster notion of their poetic value than we.
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Friends will be much apart. They will respect more each other's privacy than their communion.
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The tree of Knowledge is a Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.
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I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.
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Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics.
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