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Pictorial Quotes

Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

I have the habit of attention to such excess, that my senses get no rest – but suffer from a constant strain.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I cannot read a single word of the Hindoos without being elevated.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Every day or two, I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live and could not spare any more time for that one.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I often visited a particular plant four or five miles distant, half a dozen times within a fortnight, that I might know exactly when it opened.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of today.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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To be awake is to be alive.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New, but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Some are reputed sick and some are not. It often happens that the sicker man is the nurse to the sounder.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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An unclean person is universally a slothful one.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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To be admitted to Nature’s hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Faith never makes a confession.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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‘Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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The perception of beauty is a moral test.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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If misery loves company, misery has company enough.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.

Henry David Thoreau Philosopher
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