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In 1848, Thoreau went to jail for refusing, as a protest against the Mexican war, to pay his poll tax. When RW Emerson came to bail him out, Emerson said, 'Henry, what are you doing in there?' Thoreau quietly replied, 'Ralph, what are you doing out there?'

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
Went
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Came
Polls
Thoreau
War
Quietly
Emerson
Mexican
Ralph
Protest
Bail
Jail
Poll
Taxes
Refusing
Pay
Henry

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
Henry David Thoreau
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We should impart our courage and not our despair.
Henry David Thoreau
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Nothing can shock a brave man but dullness.
Henry David Thoreau
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Scholars are wont to sell their birthright for a mess of learning.
Henry David Thoreau
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This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?
Henry David Thoreau
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We saw men haying far off in the meadow, their heads waving like the grass which they cut. In the distance the wind seemed to bend all alike.
Henry David Thoreau
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If ever I did a man any goodof course it was something exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I am constantly doing by being what I am.
Henry David Thoreau
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They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others.Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death.
Henry David Thoreau
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Life isn't about finding yourself it's about creating yourself. So live the life you imagined.
Henry David Thoreau
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Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping.
Henry David Thoreau
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You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land there is no other life but this.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.
Henry David Thoreau
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The earth I tread on is not a dead inert mass. It is a body, has a spirit is organic and fluid to the influence of its spirit and to whatever particle of the spirit is in me.
Henry David Thoreau
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If however the law is so promulgated that it of necessity makes you an agent of injustices against another, then I say to you ... break the law.
Henry David Thoreau
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That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
Henry David Thoreau
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You speak of poverty and dependence. Who are poor and dependent? Who are rich and independent? When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?
Henry David Thoreau
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Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventure. Let the noon find you by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound.
Henry David Thoreau
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We do not enjoy poetry unless we know it to be poetry.
Henry David Thoreau