"Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength."
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Quote collection
Henry David Thoreau quotes (page 53 of 139)
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"We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing."
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"We are ashamed of our fear; for we know that a righteous man would not suspect danger nor incur any. Wherever a man feels fear, there is an avenger."
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"Voting for the right is doing nothing for it."
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"Of what significance are the things you can forget."
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"Poetry is nothing but healthy speech."
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"The unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of God."
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"The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, one would say, is all that saves it; but as I love literature and to some extent the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much."
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"Our thoughts are epochs in our lives; all else is but as a journal of the winds that blow while we are here."
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"I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety."
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"The Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the leopard his spots."
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"So far as my experience goes, travelers generally exaggerate the difficulties of the way. Like most evil, the difficulty is imaginary; for what's the hurry?"
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"We should endeavor practically in our lives to correct all the defects which our imagination detects."
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"I love a life whose plot is simple."
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"Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a west as distant and as fair as that into which the Sun goes down. He appears to migrate westward daily and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those mountain ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which were last gilded by his rays."
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"What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?"
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"Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout."
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"The newspaper is a Bible which we read every morning and every afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a Biblewhich every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and counter, and which the mail, and thousands of missionaries, are continually dispersing. It is, in short, the only book which America has printed, and which America reads. So wide is its influence."
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"What recommends commerce to me is its enterprise and bravery. It does not clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter."
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"There is such a thing as caste, even in the West; but it is comparatively faint; it is conservatism here. It says, forsake not your calling, outrage no institution, use no violence, rend no bonds; the State is thy parent. Its virtue or manhood is wholly filial."
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