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I have no designs on society, or nature, or God. I am simply what I am, or I begin to be that. I live in the present. I only remember the past, and anticipate the future. I love to live.

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
Past
Anticipate
Remember
Begin
Live
Design
Present
Love
Simply
Society
Future
Nature
Designs

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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We saw one school-house in our walk, and listened to the sounds which issued from it but it appeared like a place where the process, not of enlightening, but of obfuscating the mind was going on, and the pupils received only so much light as could penetrate the shadow of the Catholic church.
Henry David Thoreau
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We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected.
Henry David Thoreau
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We should impart our courage and not our despair.
Henry David Thoreau
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When a noble deed is done, who is likely to appreciate it? They who are noble themselves.
Henry David Thoreau
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I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.
Henry David Thoreau
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The outward is only the outside of that which is within. Men are not concealed under habits, but are revealed by them they are their true clothes.
Henry David Thoreau
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Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution.
Henry David Thoreau
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Spring-an experience in immortality.
Henry David Thoreau
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I wished only to be set down in Canada, and take one honest walk there as I might in Concord woods of an afternoon.
Henry David Thoreau
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I knew that the wall was the main thing in Quebec, and had cost a great deal of money.... In fact, these are the only remarkable walls we have in North America, though we have a good deal of Virginia fence, it is true.
Henry David Thoreau
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Always the laws of light are the same, but the modes and degrees of seeing vary.
Henry David Thoreau
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Let go of the past and go for the future.
Henry David Thoreau
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Even Nature is observed to have her playful moods or aspects, of which man sometimes seems to be the sport.
Henry David Thoreau
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The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.
Henry David Thoreau
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The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical. Nothing will dignify and elevate science while it is sundered so wholly from the moral life of its devotee.
Henry David Thoreau
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We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.
Henry David Thoreau
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You must converse much with the field and the woods if you would imbibe such health into your mind and spirit as you covet for your body
Henry David Thoreau
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Nature is full of genius, full of divinity.
Henry David Thoreau
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I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extravagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limit of my daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been convinced.
Henry David Thoreau
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Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you'll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books. And then you'll be in as much trouble as I am!
Henry David Thoreau