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As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle but I think that I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made.

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
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
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Henry D. Thoreau
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Heard
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Way
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Pots

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As far as our noblest hardwood forests are concerned, the animals, especially squirrels and jays, are our greatest and almost only benefactors. It is to them that we owe this gift. It is not in vain that the squirrels live in or about every forest tree, or hollow log, and every wall and heap of stones.
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The condition-of-England question is a practical one. The condition of England demands a hero, not a poet.
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All great enterprises are self-supporting.
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Let go of the past and live the future . . . Live the life you imagined.
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You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.
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I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also.
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Tough times don't last but tough people do. No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch. Men are born to succeed, not fail.
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A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.
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We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.
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I am engaged to Concord and my own private pursuits by 10,000 ties, and it would be suicide to rend them.
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A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep.
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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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Whatever we leave to God, God does and blesses us.
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As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth.
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The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.
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I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.
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Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
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How can he remember well his ignorance - which his growth requires - who has so often to use his knowledge?
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Especially the transcendental philosophy needs the leaven of humor to render it light and digestible.
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As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. Some see only clouds there some, prodigies and portents some rarely look up at all their heads, like the brutes,' are directed toward Earth. Some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable. The world runs to see the panorama, when there is a panorama in the sky which few go to see.
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