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All questions rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed,but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the occasion say it.

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
Written
Occasions
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May
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Nothing
Lips
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Postponed
Present
Measures
Says
Occasion

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The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering for want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.
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The most primitive places left with us are the swamps, where the spruce still grows shaggy with usnea.
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We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.
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Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.
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The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
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The meeting of two eternities, the past and future....is precisely the present moment.
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Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eye.
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A man sits as many risks as he runs.
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Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin!
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Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.
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Today...the bluebirds, old and young, have revisited their box, as if they would fain repeat the summer without intervention of winter, if Nature would let them.
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An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
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I have seen more men than usual, lately and, well as I was acquainted with one, I am surprised to find what vulgar fellows they are.
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An unclean person is universally a slothful one.
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Perfect alchemists I keep who can transmute substances without end, and thus the corner of my garden is an inexhaustible treasure-chest. Here you can dig, not gold, but the value which gold merely represents and there is no Signor Blitz about it.
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Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.
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The tavern will compare favorably with the church.
Henry David Thoreau
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Books are for the most part willfully and hastily written, as parts of a system to supply a want real or imagined.
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Friends will be much apart. They will respect more each other's privacy than their communion.
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Nature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.
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