None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination
Interpretation
Connecting deeply with nature enhances our intellect and creativity.
Thoreau emphasizes that a profound connection between the soul and the natural world is essential for intellectual growth and imaginative thinking. This union allows individuals to tap into deeper insights and foster creativity, illustrating the importance of nature in the cultivation of the mind.
In practice
In a speech about environmental awareness, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of nature for human development.
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
A tree is a wonderful living organism which gives shelter, food, warmth and protection to all living things. It even gives shade to those who wield an axe to cut it down
I go to the wild mountains where I am responsible for myself. Step by step I am making sure that I don't die.
People don't want to go to the dump and have a picnic, they want to go out to a beautiful place and enjoy their day. And so I think our job is to try to take the environment, take what the good Lord has given us, and expand upon it or enhance it, without destroying it.
Four hundred year old trees, who draw aliveness from the earth like smoke from the heart of God, we come, not knowing you will hush our little want to be big; we come, not knowing that all the work is so much busyness of mind; all the worry, so much busyness of heart. As the sun warms anything near, being warms everything still and the great still things that outlast us make us crack like leaves of laurel releasing a fragrance that has always been.
Why this cult of wilderness?... because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.
We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.