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I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.
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
Hate
Profession
Trade
Fashion
Present
Odious
Getting
Modes
Working
Relish
Simple
Farming
Living
Primitive
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work.
Henry David Thoreau
It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellowmen to have an interest in your enterprise.
Henry David Thoreau
I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place I sympathize with one of my neighbors, an old man, who has not been there since the last war, when he was compelled to go. No, I have a real genius for staying at home.
Henry David Thoreau
I already, and for weeks afterward, felt my nature the coarser for this part of my woodland experience, and was reminded that ourlife should be lived as tenderly and daintily as one would pluck a flower.
Henry David Thoreau
Real power is measured by how much you can let things be.
Henry David Thoreau
Men seem anxious to accomplish an orderly retreat through the centuries, earnestly rebuilding the works behind them, as they are battered down by the encroachments of time but while they loiter, they and their works both fall prey to the arch enemy.
Henry David Thoreau
I do not know how to distinguish between waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?
Henry David Thoreau
It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.
Henry David Thoreau
Simplicity is the peak of civilization.
Henry David Thoreau
The Indian...stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily and gracefully. But the civilized man has the habits of the house. His house is a prison.
Henry David Thoreau
The poet is he who can write some pure mythology today without the aid of posterity.
Henry David Thoreau
I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.
Henry David Thoreau
The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must bestripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living laid for a foundation.
Henry David Thoreau
I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.
Henry David Thoreau
You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity may be you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it.
Henry David Thoreau
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.
Henry David Thoreau
I did not know that we had ever quarreled.
Henry David Thoreau
Art can never match the luxury and superfluity of Nature. In the former all is seen it cannot afford concealed wealth, and is niggardly in comparison but Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.
Henry David Thoreau
We must have infinite faith in each other.
Henry David Thoreau
Every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us.
Henry David Thoreau
