Quote

It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have...but shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?

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
House
Obtain
Stills
Convenient
Still
Invent
Sometimes
Content
Always
Shall
Things
Study
Possible
Less
Luxurious

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.
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A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.
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At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house.
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No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of spring.
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The body can feed the body only.
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The imagination never forgets it is a re-membering. It is not foundationless, but most reasonable, and it alone uses all the knowledge of the intellect.
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The ears were made, not for such trivial uses as men are wont to suppose, but to hear celestial sounds.
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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.
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I have no time to be in a hurry.
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It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat the mirror-like surface of the water, in which every twig and blade of grass was so faithfully reflected too faithfully indeed for art to imitate, for only Nature may exaggerate herself.
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The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement.
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The improved means to the unimproved end.
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We are superior to the joy we experience.
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When I meet a government which says to me, Your money or your life, why should I be in haste to give it my money?
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I mean that they (students) should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics.
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Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment
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There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon.
Henry David Thoreau
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A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons their kind only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.
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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!
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It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
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