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At present the globe goes with a shattered constitution in its orbit.... No doubt the simple powers of nature, properly directed by man, would make it healthy and a paradise as the laws of man's own constitution but wait to be obeyed, to restore him to health and happiness.

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
Men
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Reform
Shattered
Waiting
Wait
Restore
Law
Laws
Globe
Happiness
Constitution
Globes
Simple
Healthy
Directed
Nature
Health
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Obeyed
Would
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Orbit

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I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable but my friend is my amiableness personified.
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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.
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I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.
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Men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.
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Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve.
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The question is whether you can bear freedom. At present the vast majority of men, whether white or black, require the discipline of labor which enslaves them for their own good.
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Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves.
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When I meet a government which says to me, Your money or your life, why should I be in haste to give it my money?
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Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
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Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances will avail.... It is a drama in which the parties have no part to act.
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Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
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How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?
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It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination
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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.
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We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads,--and then we can hardly see anything else.
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The squeaking of the pump sounds as necessary as the music of the spheres.
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A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority it is not even a minority then but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.
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The murmurs of many a famous river on the other side of the globe reach even to us here, as to more distant dwellers on its banksmany a poet's stream, floating the helms and shields of heroes on its bosom.
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We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.
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We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defenses only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free.
Henry David Thoreau