Quote

Where is the unexplored land but in our own untried enterprises? To an adventurous spirit any place--London, New York, Worcester, or his own yard--is unexplored land, to seek which Frémont and Kane travel so far. To a sluggish and defeated spirit even the Great Basin and the Polaris are trivial places.

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
Spirit
Enterprise
Unexplored
Place
London
Enterprises
Great
Ambition
Yard
Even
Seek
Adventurous
Mont
York
Trivial
Untried
Travel
Yards
Basin
Places
Exploration
Kane
Land
Defeated
Sluggish

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The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.
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The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country, from every solitary beaver swamp and mountain-side, as soon as possible.
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If I thought that I could speak with discrimination and impartiality of the nations of Christendom, I should praise them, but it tasks me too much. They seem to be the most civil and humane, but I may be mistaken.
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If the work is high and far, You must not only aim aright, But draw the bow with all your might.
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Even trees do not die without a groan.
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If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
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Read not the Times, read the Eternities.
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My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it.
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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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Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.
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Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of beauty, as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds.
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A temple, you know, was anciently an open place without a roof, whose walls served merely to shut out the world and direct the mind toward heaven but a modern meeting-house shuts out the heavens, while it crowds the world into still closer quarters.
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I feel as if my life had grown more outward when I can express it.
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I do not know at first what it is that harms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to be fairer and truer in to-morrow's memory.
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We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.
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I seem to have dodged all my days with one or two persons, and lived upon expectation,--as if the bud would surely blossom and soI am content to live.
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The monster is never just there where we think he is. What is truly monstrous is our cowardice and sloth.
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Where there is a lull in truth an institution springs up.
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I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.
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