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As if our birth had at first sundered things, and we had been thrust up through into nature like a wedge, and not till the wound heals and the scar disappears, do we begin to discover where we are, and that nature is one and continuous everywhere.
Henry David Thoreau -
For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms, and did my duty faithfully, though I never received one cent for it.
Henry David Thoreau
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The eye may see for the hand, but not for the mind.
Henry David Thoreau -
Men go to a fire for entertainment. When I see how eagerly men will run to a fire, whether in warm or in cold weather, by day or by night, dragging an engine at their heels, I'm astonished to perceive how good a purpose the level of excitement is made to serve.
Henry David Thoreau -
Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open.
Henry David Thoreau -
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
Henry David Thoreau -
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. I am surprised, as well as delighted, when this happens, it is such a rare use he would make of me, as if he were acquainted with the tool.
Henry David Thoreau -
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
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The commonest and cheapest sounds, as the barking of a dog, produce the same effect on fresh and healthy ears that the rarest music does. It depends on your appetite for sound. Just as a crust is sweeter to a healthy appetite than confectionery to a pampered or diseased one.
Henry David Thoreau -
Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau -
I am a parcel of vain strivings tiedBy a chance bond together,Dangling this way and that, their linksWere made so loose and wide,Methinks,For milder weather.
Henry David Thoreau -
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at.
Henry David Thoreau -
The unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of God.
Henry David Thoreau -
I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject.
Henry David Thoreau
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What are the earth and all its interests beside the deep surmise which pierces and scatters them?
Henry David Thoreau -
Far from New England's blustering shore,New England's worm her hulk shall bore,And sink her in the Indian seas,Twine, wine, and hides, and China teas.
Henry David Thoreau -
How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answered that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
Henry David Thoreau -
My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read,'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at largeDown in the meadow, where is richer feed,And will not mind to hit their proper targe.
Henry David Thoreau -
None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.
Henry David Thoreau -
The finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finer intelligence.
Henry David Thoreau
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And now, at half-past ten o'clock, I hear the cockerels crow in Hubbard's barns, and morning is already anticipated. It is the feathered, wakeful thought in us that anticipates the following day.
Henry David Thoreau -
The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society!
Henry David Thoreau -
Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
Henry David Thoreau -
Every poet has trembled on the verge of science.
Henry David Thoreau