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  ...not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.   " When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis. Let us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and anxiety which I have referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that we be troubled, or at least careful. It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross...   Thoreau, Henry David

Excerpt from Walden · This quote is about knowledge · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.


A bit about Thoreau, Henry David ...

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 - 1862) was an American essayist, poet, and naturalist. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.

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