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How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage against 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
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Poet
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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Machines
Detain
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Inventions
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Every
Modern
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For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.
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What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!
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If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
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What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.
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In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment to toe that line.
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Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventure. Let the noon find you by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.
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The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.
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Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures.
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I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
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Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
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My enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all woodchucks.
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For an impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself
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What avails it that another loves you, if he does not understand you? Such love is a curse.
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There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.
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When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.
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For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.
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If you would feel the full force of a tempest, take up your residence on the top of Mount Washington, or at the Highland Light, inTruro.
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He who is conversant with the supernal powers will not worship these inferior deities of the wind, waves, tide, and sunshine. Butwe would not disparage the importance of such calculations as we have described. They are truths in physics because they are true in ethics.
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The only people who ever get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost.
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