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

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it.
Henry David Thoreau
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Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance.
Henry David Thoreau
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Then at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have seen more men than usual, lately and, well as I was acquainted with one, I am surprised to find what vulgar fellows they are.
Henry David Thoreau
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Long as I have lived, and many blasphemers as I have heard and seen, I have never yet heard or witnessed any direct and consciousblasphemy or irreverence but of indirect and habitual, enough. Where is the man who is guilty of direct and personal insolence to Him that made him?
Henry David Thoreau
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The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not.
Henry David Thoreau
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How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are!
Henry David Thoreau
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A strange age of the world this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private man's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a newspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hard pushed and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to vote for it.
Henry David Thoreau
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The experience of every past moment but belies the faith of each present.
Henry David Thoreau
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Do what you love. Know your own bone gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
Henry David Thoreau
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To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.
Henry David Thoreau
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Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.
Henry David Thoreau
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I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.
Henry David Thoreau
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Live the life you've dreamed.
Henry David Thoreau
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Some do not walk at all others walk in the highways a few walk across lots.
Henry David Thoreau
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I make my own time. I make my own terms. I cannot see how God or Nature can ever get the start of me.
Henry David Thoreau
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They take great pride in making their dinner cost much I take my pride in making my dinner cost so little.
Henry David Thoreau
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I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.
Henry David Thoreau
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We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.
Henry David Thoreau
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The man who does not betake himself at once and desperately to sawing is called a loafer, though he may be knocking at the doors of heaven all the while.
Henry David Thoreau