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Henry David Thoreau approached Work from first principles, cutting through assumptions to reveal fundamental truths. This archive captures that thinking, giving you access to frameworks you can build on. Every quote is sourced and contextualized, allowing you to understand their reasoning. Use this when you need to think clearly about Work without inheriting broken mental models.
"I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business. p. 485"
Website: Wikiquote - Henry David Thoreau (Life Without Principle (1863))
"Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages.  But many are no more worthily employed now. p. 485"
Website: Wikiquote - Henry David Thoreau (Life Without Principle (1863))
"The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward.  To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse.  If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. p. 486"
Website: Wikiquote - Henry David Thoreau (Life Without Principle (1863))
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"Use this collection whenever you need Henry David Thoreau's lens on Work."