Quote

It will always be found that one flourishing institution exists and battens on another mouldering one. The Present itself is parasitic to this extent.

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
Exists
Institutions
Present
Found
Mouldering
Another
Parasitic
Always
Flourishing
Institution
Extent

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be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.
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I find it, as ever, very unprofitable to have much to do with men. It is sowing the wind, but not reaping even the whirlwind onlyreaping an unprofitable calm and stagnation. Our conversation is a smooth, and civil, and never-ending speculation merely.
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Think for yourself, or others will think for you without thinking of you.
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Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit.
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Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe.
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Do not despair of life. You have no doubt force enough to overcome your obstacles. Think of the fox prowling through wood and field in a winter night for something to satisfy his hunger. Notwithstanding cold and the hounds and traps, his race survives. I do not believe any of them ever committed suicide.
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It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
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That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the United States generally, any more than to Patagonia.
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In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
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We must heap up a great pile of doing, for a small diameter of being.
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Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.
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How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seedtime of character?
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I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents.
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As for health, consider yourself well.
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It is dry, hazy June weather. We are more of the earth, farther from heaven these days.
Henry David Thoreau
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As far as our noblest hardwood forests are concerned, the animals, especially squirrels and jays, are our greatest and almost only benefactors. It is to them that we owe this gift. It is not in vain that the squirrels live in or about every forest tree, or hollow log, and every wall and heap of stones.
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The music of all creatures has to do with their loves, even of toads and frogs. Is it not the same with man?
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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.
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We are ashamed of our fear for we know that a righteous man would not suspect danger nor incur any. Wherever a man feels fear, there is an avenger.
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When I would go a-visiting, I find that I go off the fashionable street,--not being inclined to change my dress,--to where man meets man, and not polished shoe meets shoe.
Henry David Thoreau