Quote

I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled through a mud-puddle he comes out honor-bright from behind every storm. Let us then take sides with the sun, seeing we have so much leisure.

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
Take
Sun
Puddles
Much
Honor
Rolled
Every
Behinds
Mud
Never
Behind
Knocked
Knew
Leisure
Sides
Optimism
Seeing
Bright
Comes
Storm
Puddle

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full.
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Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.
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I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect...always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished.
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Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it.
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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!]
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You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.
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When some of my friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they should let them hunt, I have answered yes-- remembering that it was one of the best parts of my education-- make them hunters.
Henry David Thoreau
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He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past
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Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.
Henry David Thoreau
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For if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men?
Henry David Thoreau
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It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They have n't got life enough in them.... Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began.
Henry David Thoreau
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We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough.
Henry David Thoreau
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There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning.
Henry David Thoreau
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Things don't change. We change.
Henry David Thoreau
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I stand in awe of my body.
Henry David Thoreau
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Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever?
Henry David Thoreau
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You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint No Admittance on my gate.
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