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Most think that they are above being supported by the town but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which would be more disreputable.
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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Ecologist
Environmentalist
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Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.
Henry David Thoreau
By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude.
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There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of expediency. There is no such thing as sliding up- hill.In morals the only sliders are backsliders.
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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
Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him forever.
Henry David Thoreau
How shall we account for our pursuits, if they are original? We get the language with which to describe our various lives out of acommon mint.
Henry David Thoreau
In the love of narrow souls I make many short voyages but in vain-I find no sea room-but in great souls I sail before the wind without a watch, and never reach the shore.
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But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the severest satire.... The greater the genius, the keener the edge of the satire.
Henry David Thoreau
There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.
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The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.
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Philosophy, having crept clinging to the rocks so far, puts out its feelers many ways in vain.
Henry David Thoreau
In the student sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind.
Henry David Thoreau
I lose my respect for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when you speak earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent.
Henry David Thoreau
Poetry is the mysticism of mankind.
Henry David Thoreau
Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid.
Henry David Thoreau
We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not.
Henry David Thoreau
Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towardsrecognizing and organizing the rights of man?
Henry David Thoreau
The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest. They are spoken firmly and conclusively,as if the speaker had a right to know what he says, and if not wise, they have at least been well learned.
Henry David Thoreau
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
Henry David Thoreau
Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction.
Henry David Thoreau