"The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend."
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Henry David Thoreau quotes (page 4 of 139)
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"Time is like a handful of sand - the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers."
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"In 1848, Thoreau went to jail for refusing, as a protest against the Mexican war, to pay his poll tax. When RW Emerson came to bail him out, Emerson said, 'Henry, what are you doing in there?' Thoreau quietly replied, 'Ralph, what are you doing out there?'"
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"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion."
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"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."
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"Think for yourself, or others will think for you without thinking of you."
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"But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost."
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"If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment."
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"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"
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"I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn."
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"The soul grows by subtraction, not addition."
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"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor."
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"The language of friendship is not words but meanings."
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"Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary."
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"The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every State which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the Northern forests who were."
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"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes."
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"The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly."
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"Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?"
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"All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority."
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"The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before."
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