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There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law.
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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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.
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When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.
Henry David Thoreau
With all your science can you tell me how it is, and when it is, that light comes into the soul?
Henry David Thoreau
The tree of Knowledge is a Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.
Henry David Thoreau
It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws.
Henry David Thoreau
Every sentence is the result of a long probation.
Henry David Thoreau
Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves.
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If you would be chaste, you must be temperate.
Henry David Thoreau
The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to see himself.
Henry David Thoreau
How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?
Henry David Thoreau
The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,--the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,--at least apparently,--but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know.
Henry David Thoreau
Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution.
Henry David Thoreau
Be not anxious to avoid poverty. In this way the wealth of the universe may be securely invested.
Henry David Thoreau
You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint No Admittance on my gate.
Henry David Thoreau
To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.
Henry David Thoreau
I always see those of whom I have heard well with a slight disappointment. They are so much better than the great herd, and yet the heavens are not shivered into diamonds over their heads.
Henry David Thoreau
The experience of every past moment but belies the faith of each present.
Henry David Thoreau
Sometimes you have to leave the world in order to learn how to live in it. Thoreau shunned society, went to the woods, and came back with a new understanding of life.
Henry David Thoreau
We cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto.
Henry David Thoreau
If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.
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