"With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan, — mere Jonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards, — because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth, — because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufactures and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

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p. 493

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau