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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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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
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
World
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Consent
Enlighten
Point
Justified
Audacious
Cannot
Wit
Wits
Government
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Justly
Without
Conscience
Dissolution
Always
Step
Punished
Men
Taking
Enlightening
Life
Steps
Murderer

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Even Nature is observed to have her playful moods or aspects, of which man sometimes seems to be the sport.
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To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.
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One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.
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If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveler always has a resource in the skies. They are constantly turning a new page to view. The wind sets the types on this blue ground, and the inquiring may always read a new truth there.
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God is alone,-but the devil, he is far from being alone he sees a great deal of company he is legion.
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Faith, indeed, is all the reform that is needed it is itself a reform.
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We are apt to imagine that this hubbub of Philosophy, Literature, and Religion, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's axle. But if a man sleeps soundly, he will forget it all between sunset and dawn.
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I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor man, there are many pleasures which he will not know!
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But what is quackery? It is commonly an attempt to cure the diseases of a man by addressing his body alone. There is need of a physician who shall minister to both soul and body at once, that is, to man. Now he falls between two stools.
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The child should have the advantage of ignorance as well as of knowledge, and is fortunate if he gets his share of neglect and exposure.
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The tree of Knowledge is a Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.
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We hate the kindness which we understand.
Henry David Thoreau
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Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature.
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We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake.
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He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach.
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Let go of the past and live the future . . . Live the life you imagined.
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In the wilderness is the salvation of the world.
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Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over your head.
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Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
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A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that surround it.
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