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It is life near the bone where it is sweetest.

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In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.

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I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

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Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three ti...more

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The ways by which you may get your money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earn money 'merely' is to be truly...more

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Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress...more

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The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering from want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Seco...more

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I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acqu...more

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In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live sim...more

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There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time ...more

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But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-...more

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It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to t...more

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This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wan...more

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Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; an...more