[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.
Interpretation
Walking allows you to observe and appreciate the beauty of life more fully than any other form of transport.
In this quote, Elizabeth Von Arnim expresses the idea that walking provides a unique opportunity to engage with the world around us. Unlike faster modes of transportation, walking allows us to slow down and notice the small, often overlooked details of life, leading to a deeper appreciation of our surroundings and a sense of freedom.
In practice
This quote is perfect for inspiring a nature walk event in a community newsletter.
On wet days I will go into the thickest parts of the forest, where the pine needles are everlastingly dry, and when the sun shines I'll lie on the heath and see how the broom flares against the clouds. I shall be perpetually happy, because there will be no one to worry me.
I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow.
If one believed in angels one would feel that they must love us best when we are asleep and cannot hurt each other; and what a mercy it is that once in every twenty-four hours we are too utterly weary to go on being unkind.
I can say, if I like, that social insects behave like the working parts of an immense central nervous system: the termite colony is an enormous brain on millions of legs; the individual termite is a mobile neurone.
Wilderness to the people of America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium.
Nature, like a loving mother, is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony and beauty may reign supreme.
It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in.
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