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I did not know that mankind was suffering for want of gold.

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
Mankind
Suffering
Gold

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As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as the work of today is present, so some flitting perspectives and demi-experiencesof the life that is in nature are in time veritably future, or rather outside of time, perennial, young, divine, in the wind and rain which never die.
Henry David Thoreau
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The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct. It appeared more beautiful to live low and farehard in many respects and though I never did so, I went far enough to please my imagination.
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There are secret articles in our treaties with the gods, of more importance than all the rest, which the historian can never know.
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We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake.
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Read not the Times, read the Eternities.
Henry David Thoreau
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When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?
Henry David Thoreau
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For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labour of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.
Henry David Thoreau
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When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable.
Henry David Thoreau
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Why will we be imposed on by antiquity?
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There is an orientalism in the most restless pioneer, and the farthest west is but the farthest east.
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Associate reverently, and as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.
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A sentence should be read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable but my friend is my amiableness personified.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.
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The same law that shapes the earth-star shapes the snow-star. As surely as the petals of a flower are fixed, each of these countless snow-stars comes whirling to earth...these glorious spangles, the sweeping of heaven's floor.
Henry David Thoreau
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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.
Henry David Thoreau
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What the first philosopher taught the last will have to repeat.
Henry David Thoreau
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As they say in geology, time never fails, there is always enough of it, so I may say, criticism never fails.
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Left to herself, nature is always more or less civilized, and delights in a certain refinement but where the axe has encroached upon the edge of the forest, the dead and unsightly limbs of the pine, which she had concealed with green banks of verdure, are exposed to sight.
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What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator.
Henry David Thoreau