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There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hand. I love a broad margin to my life.

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
Love
Head
Margin
Life
Hand
Bloom
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Margins
Times
Broads
Moment
Broad
Moments
Afford
Hands
Sacrifice
Work
Present

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It must be confessed that horses at present work too exclusively for men, rarely men for horses and the brute degenerates in man's society.
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Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length blows it down.
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In the mythus a superhuman intelligence uses the unconscious thoughts and dreams of men as its hieroglyphics to address men unborn.
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That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
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The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body.
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We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success. What we do best or most perfectly is what we have most thoroughly learned by the longest practice, and at length it falls from us without our notice, as a leaf from a tree.
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Fame itself is but an epitaph as late, as false, as true.
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Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was exhausted.
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The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what we do and yet how much is not done by us!
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It is not worth the while to live by rich cookery.
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The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.
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Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit.
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Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?
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