Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Independence
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What is the use of going right over the old track again? There is an adder in the path which your own feet have worn. You must make tracks into the Unknown.
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Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them.
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It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to their minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them off from their present pursuit.
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I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society.
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All good things are wild and free.
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Why will we be imposed on by antiquity?
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The thoughtful man becomes a hermit in the thoroughfares of the marketplace.
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As for conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that. Let not your right hand know what your left hand does in that line of business. It will prove a failure.... It is a greater strain than any soul can long endure. When you get God to pulling one way, and the devil the other, each having his feet well braced,--to say nothing of the conscience sawing transversely,--almost any timber will give way.
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To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.
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The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the heavens; evenafter the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are apparent.
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The Indian's intercourse with Nature is at least such as admits of the greatest independence of each.
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To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, andflatter and study effect only more finely than the rest.
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Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison, the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. They do not know how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.
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Men spend the best parts of their lives earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.
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An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.
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The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the "means" are increased.
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I delight to come to my bearings,... not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sitthoughtfully while it goes by.
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We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.
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I expect a time when, or rather an integrity by which, a man will get his coat as honestly and as perfectly fitting as a tree itsbark. Now our garments are typical of our conformity to the ways of the world, i.e., of the devil, and to some extent react on us and poison us, like that shirt which Hercules put on.
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Alas! this is the crying sin of the age, this want of faith in the prevalence of a man. Nothing can be effected but by one man. Hewho wants help wants everything. True, this is the condition of our weakness, but it can never be the means of our recovery. We must first succeed alone, that we may enjoy our success together.
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It is always singular, but encouraging, to meet with common sense in very old books, as the Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma; a playful wisdom which has eyes behind as well as before, and oversees itself. It asserts their health and independence of the experience of later times. This pledge of sanity cannot be spared in a book, that it sometimes pleasantly reflect upon itself.
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They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating property. The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it.
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Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.
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No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature, knowing himself for a man, and the equal of any and all governments. In that sense he was the most American of us all.
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You speak of poverty and dependence. Who are poor and dependent? Who are rich and independent? When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?
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Genius is not a retainer to any emperor.
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What have I to do with plows? I cut another furrow than you see.
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Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary travelers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path across lots will turn out the higher way of the two.
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All great enterprises are self-supporting.
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The newspapers are the ruling power. Any other government is reduced to a few marines at Fort Independence. If a man neglects to read the Daily Times, government will go down on its knees to him, for this is the only treason these days.
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