The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.


Henry David Thoreau

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What is once well done is done forever.
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The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
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We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.
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That government is best which governs least.
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This world is but a canvas to our imaginations.
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We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice.
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If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual ph...
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A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority.
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In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions...
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Time is but the stream I go fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and ...
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You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.
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A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as this brain.
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Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.
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Associate reverently, as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.
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How can they expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character.
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Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid.
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Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them.
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Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade...
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Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.
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A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
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I have a deep sympathy with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul.
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That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
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A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can let alone.
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We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is mo...
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It requires nothing less than a chivalric feeling to sustain a conversation with a lady.
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How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no for...
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A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who...
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We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.
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A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.
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To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most ...
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Men have become the tools of their trade.
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It takes two to speak truth -- one to speak, and another to hear.
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Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love.
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The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
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You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.
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Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
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Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
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Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.
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The only wealth is life.
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Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
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How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?
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I have lived some thirty-odd years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valu...
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The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.
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We falsely attribute to men a determined character -- putting together all their yesterdays -- and a...
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If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?
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Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it pea...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Seve...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Fame is not just. She never finely or discriminatingly praises, but coarsely hurrahs.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we h...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It's not enough to be busy. The question is: What are we busy about?
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
People die of fright and live of confidence.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their l...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It is only when we forget out learning that we begin to know.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch of a free meandering brook.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If you give money, spend yourself with it.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I was once reproved by a minister who was driving a poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds amo...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fool...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I would not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate pov...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any preceden...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest t...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
It is desirable that a man live in all respects so simply and preparedly that if an enemy take the t...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Life in us is like the water in a river.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Of what significance are the things you can forget.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, an they who edit and read it are old women ov...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU