As for Doing-good,
that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it
fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree
with my constitution. Probably I should not consciously and deliberately
forsake my particular calling to do the good which society demands of
me, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like
but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves
it.
Tags: inspirational philosophy
Sometimes, in a summer morning,
having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise
till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs,
in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or
flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at
my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant
highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons
like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the
hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but
so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals
mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I
minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some
work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing
memorable is accomplished.
Tags: inspirational philosophy
A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit until we have so conducted that we feel like new men in the old.
Henry David ThoreauThe most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?
Henry David ThoreauThe church is a sort of hospital for men's souls and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies.
Henry David ThoreauIf one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.
Henry David ThoreauIf you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.
Henry David ThoreauTags: inspirational
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.
Henry David ThoreauTags: words reading books literature
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
Henry David ThoreauTags: nature morning simplicity
But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little have been tried.
Henry David Thoreau« first previous
Page 37 of 79.
next last »
Data privacy
Imprint
Contact
Diese Website verwendet Cookies, um Ihnen die bestmögliche Funktionalität bieten zu können.