Quote

A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons their kind only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

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
Certain
Seasons
Kind
Animals
Apprehend
Men
Already
Receives
Ready
Intellectually
Hear
Conceive
Animal
Morally
Whether
Physically
Half
Receive

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.
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No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.
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So near along life's stream are the fountains of innocence and youth making fertile its sandy margin and the voyageur will do well to replenish his vessels often at these uncontaminated sources.
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You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.
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An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.
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When we are in health, all sounds fife and drum for us we hear the notes of music in the air, or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the dawn.
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A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.
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It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men.
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It is impossible to give a soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him.
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Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
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Beware of any profession for which you must buy new clothes.
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There is absolutely no common sense, it is common non-sense.
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It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to their minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them off from their present pursuit.
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Who looks in the sun will see no light else but also he will see no shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the same, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul.
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Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
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There is one thought for the field, another for the house. I would have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in the house.
Henry David Thoreau
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In the religion of all nations a purity is hinted at, which, I fear, men never attain to.
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In the unbending of the arm to do the deed there is experience worth all the maxims in the world.
Henry David Thoreau
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To say that God has given a man many and great talents frequently means that he has brought his heavens down within reach of his hands.
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It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.
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