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You don't know your testament when you see 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
Translator
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Testament

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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Some simple dishes recommend themselves to our imaginations as well as palates.
Henry David Thoreau
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I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.
Henry David Thoreau
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All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it.
Henry David Thoreau
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I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.
Henry David Thoreau
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What great interval is there between him who is caught in Africa and made a plantation slave of in the South, and him who is caught in New England and made a Unitarian minister of?
Henry David Thoreau
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I have found all things thus far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons, strangely adapted to my resources.
Henry David Thoreau
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If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.
Henry David Thoreau
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The pleasures of the intellect are permanent, the pleasures of the heart are transitory.
Henry David Thoreau
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Many men walk by day few walk by night. It is a different season.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain.
Henry David Thoreau
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Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail.
Henry David Thoreau
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Hear! hear! screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it.
Henry David Thoreau
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Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Henry David Thoreau
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Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, 'I will simply be.
Henry David Thoreau
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In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
Henry David Thoreau
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The improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.
Henry David Thoreau
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What a glorious time they must have in that wilderness, far from mankind and election day!
Henry David Thoreau
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Methinks I am never quite committed, never wholly the creature of my moods, but always to some extent their critic. My only integral experience is in my vision. I see, perchance, with more integrity than I feel.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellowmen to have an interest in your enterprise.
Henry David Thoreau