Reflections

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Monday, October 21, 2024

Henry David Thoreau 5


Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. 

They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. 

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?—if you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. 

If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him . . . he will be surrounded by grandeur. 

He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself—how sweet this crust is! 

—Henry David Thoreau, in a letter to Harrison Blake (20 May, 1860) 



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