None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book.
Interpretation
Having ample free time is essential for a fulfilling life, just as a wide margin enhances the beauty of a book.
Henry David Thoreau's quote emphasizes the importance of leisure time in a person's life. Just as a book is aesthetically pleasing with its broad margins that provide space for reflection and annotation, a life enriched with leisure allows for personal growth, contemplation, and enjoyment, making it more beautiful and meaningful.
In practice
In a speech about work-life balance, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of downtime.
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.
As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.
That grand old poem called Winter
I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.
It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative--which ever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it.
A sip of wine, a cigarette, And then itβs time to go. I tidied up the kitchenette; I tuned the old banjo. Iβm wanted at the traffic-jam. Theyβre saving me a seat.
Every birthday, you decide whether to mark it the end of your greatest days or the beginning of your finest hour.
Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as "big bursts" and "little bursts." Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really.
There are so many times there could have been a left turn instead of a right turn in all people's lives. I think mine are pretty crystal clear, because of being adopted, being born in Ethiopia, being adopted to Sweden.
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