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

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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It would seem as if the very language of our parlors would lose all its nerve and degenerate into palaver wholly, our lives pass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are necessarily so far fetched.
Henry David Thoreau
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I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.
Henry David Thoreau
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Oh to reach the point of death and realize one has not lived at all.
Henry David Thoreau
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The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies.
Henry David Thoreau
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The lover wants no partiality. He says, Be so kind as to be just.
Henry David Thoreau
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If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even insanity, it may lead him and yet that way, as he grows more resolute and faithful, his road lies.
Henry David Thoreau
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The student may read Homer or Æschylus in the Greek without danger of dissipation or luxuriousness, for it implies that hein some measure emulate their heroes, and consecrate morning hours to their pages.
Henry David Thoreau
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If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment. [Like they say, 'Every cloud has a silver lining'...so if you are patient, expect, anticipate, look and work for some good to come from the cloud, you will be rewarded eventually!]
Henry David Thoreau
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Love does not analyze its object.
Henry David Thoreau
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Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other.
Henry David Thoreau
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I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.
Henry David Thoreau
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If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth
Henry David Thoreau
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I am a majority of one.
Henry David Thoreau
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To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health.
Henry David Thoreau
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Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary.
Henry David Thoreau
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If you will not try, you will go to your grave with your song still inside you.
Henry David Thoreau
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Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in this world?
Henry David Thoreau
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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
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Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.
Henry David Thoreau