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The Thoreau Institute
at Walden Woods Library
Thoreau's
Life & Writings
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Henry D. Thoreau Mis-Quotations Pages
“Be true to your
work, your word, and your friend.”
By the poet,
novelist and editor, John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-1890). Although the
words appear as above in several collections of quotations and axioms, the
line should read “Be true to your word and your work and your
friend” as published in his poem, “Rules of the Road” in The
Life of John Boyle O’Reilly by James Jeffrey Roche, together
with his complete poems and speeches edited by Mrs. John Boyle
O’Reilly (New York: Cassell Publishing Co., 1891) p. 533:
Be
silent and safe ― silence never betrays you;
Be true to your word and your work and your friend;
Put least trust in him who is foremost to praise you,
Nor judge of a road till it draw to the end.
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