Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Transcendentalism
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Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
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A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles,Mthat was what distinguished him.
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I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.
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The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
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On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning.
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If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
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For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labour of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.
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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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We do not enjoy poetry unless we know it to be poetry.
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As we lay huddled together under the tent, which leaked considerably about the sides, with our baggage at our feet, we listened to some of the grandest thunder which I ever heard, -rapid peals, round and plump, bang, bang, bang in succession, like artillery from some fortress in the sky; and the lightning was proportionally brilliant. The Indian said, 'It must be good powder.' All for the benefit of the moose and us, echoing far over the concealed lakes.
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None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
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Everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use.
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I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
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I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
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That government is best which governs least.
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Every man is entitled to come to Cattle-Show, even a transcendentalist; and for my part I am more interested in the men than in the cattle.
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Surely, we are provided with senses as well fitted to penetrate the spaces of the real, the substantial, the eternal, as these outward are to penetrate the material universe. Veias, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates, Christ, Shakespeare, Swedenborg,--these are some of our astronomers.
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When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis.
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A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.
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Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.
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If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?
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If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
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Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
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I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.
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be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.
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In wildness is the preservation of the world.
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Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
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I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.
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I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
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