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If a man were to place himself in an attitude to bear manfully the greatest evil that can be inflicted on him, he would find suddenly that there was no such evil to bear his brave back would go a-begging.
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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Autobiographer
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
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Naturalist
Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.
Henry David Thoreau
I thrive best on solitude. If I have had a companion only one day in a week, unless it were one or two I could name, I find that the value of the week to me has been seriously affected. It dissipates my days, and often it takes me another week to get over it.
Henry David Thoreau
If to chaffer and higgle are bad in trade, they are much worse in Love. It demands directness as of an arrow.
Henry David Thoreau
I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that Nature with which I am acquainted.
Henry David Thoreau
Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature -if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you -know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.
Henry David Thoreau
The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.
Henry David Thoreau
In some pictures of Provincetown the persons of the inhabitants are not drawn below the ankles, so much being supposed to be buried in the sand.
Henry David Thoreau
I see less difference between a city and a swamp than formerly.
Henry David Thoreau
Invariably our best nights were those when it rained.
Henry David Thoreau
It is one of the signs of the times. We confess that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas, and grander conceptions of our duties in this world. It did expand us a little.
Henry David Thoreau
He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach.
Henry David Thoreau
The books for young people say a great deal about the selection of Friends it is because they really have nothing to say about Friends. They mean associates and confidants merely.
Henry David Thoreau
The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.
Henry David Thoreau
Eastward I go only by force but westward I go free.
Henry David Thoreau
You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.
Henry David Thoreau
In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident.
Henry David Thoreau
For one that comes with a pencil to sketch or sing, a thousand come with an axe or rifle. What a coarse and imperfect use Indiansand hunters make of nature! No wonder that their race is so soon exterminated.
Henry David Thoreau
Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.
Henry David Thoreau
A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority it is not even a minority then but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.
Henry David Thoreau
Man makes very much such a nest for his domestic animals, of withered grass and fodder, as the squirrels and many other wild creatures do for themselves.
Henry David Thoreau