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I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of 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
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Autobiographer
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
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Naturalist
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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Believe
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.
Henry David Thoreau
Undoubtedly, in the most brilliant successes, the first rank is always sacrificed.
Henry David Thoreau
When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?
Henry David Thoreau
There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of expediency. There is no such thing as sliding up- hill.In morals the only sliders are backsliders.
Henry David Thoreau
I have seen some whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to former indulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt children, and at length gave them no peace. They did not know when to swallow their cud, and their lives of course yielded no milk.
Henry David Thoreau
A person who chooses to die or to risk death demonstrates that there are values, principles, maxims, that are more valuable to him than is life itself. In short, he places his immortal self above his mortal self. Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.
Henry David Thoreau
Those who work much do not work hard.
Henry David Thoreau
You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.
Henry David Thoreau
I am grateful for what I have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.
Henry David Thoreau
A man may acquire a taste for wine or brandy, and so lose his love for water, but should we not pity him.
Henry David Thoreau
Most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum - many for a glass of rum. Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!
Henry David Thoreau
I love nature, I love the landscape, because it is so sincere. It never cheats me. It never jests. It is cheerfully, musically earnest. I lie and relie on the earth.
Henry David Thoreau
Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies-neighbors are kind enough for that-but to do the like office to our spirits.
Henry David Thoreau
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.
Henry David Thoreau
Why should we leave it to Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our reading?
Henry David Thoreau
Unless the human race perspire more than I do, there is no occasion to live by the sweat of their brow. If men cannot get on without money (the smallest amount will suffice), the truest method of earning it is by working as a laborer at one dollar per day. You are least dependent so I speak as an expert, having used several kinds of labor.
Henry David Thoreau
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
Henry David Thoreau
I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.
Henry David Thoreau
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau
We should impart our courage and not our despair.
Henry David Thoreau
