"...how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!"
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Quote collection
Henry David Thoreau quotes (page 73 of 139)
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"What is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love."
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"Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as their lives. They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the rich leave money to defray the expenses of their funerals, and their memories will be incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of other men are overgrown with moss; for our Friends have no place in the graveyard."
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"Remember that you need not eat unless you are hungry."
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"Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied to life?"
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"What we need to know in any case is very simple."
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"Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up."
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"How we shall earn our bread is a grave question; yet it is a sweet and inviting question. Let us not shirk it, as is usually done.It is the most important and practical question which is put to man. Let us not answer it hastily. Let us not be content to get our bread in some gross, careless, and hasty manner. Some men go a-hunting, some a-fishing, some a-gaming, some to war; but none have so pleasant a time as they who in earnest seek to earn their bread."
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"...A traveller is to be reverenced as such. His profession is the best symbol of our life. Going from - toward; it is the history of every one of us. It is a great art to saunter."
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"What a fool he must be who thinks that his El Dorado is anywhere but where he lives."
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"The coward wants resolution, which the brave man can do without. He recognizes no faith above a creed, thinking this straw by which he is moored does him good service, because his sheet anchor does not drag."
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"Do not engage to find things as you think they are."
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"After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask."
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"He listens equally to the prayers of the believer and the unbeliever."
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"A goal is a dream taken seriously."
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"Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage."
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"And if the civilized man's pursuits are no worthier than the savage's, if he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaininggross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a better dwelling than the former?"
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"If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui."
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"The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies."
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"Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost."
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