"It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see."
"No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case."
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Source: Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.26, Rowman & Littlefield
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