Wisdom Nuggets from Thoreau

I just found on a shelf and read a compilation of Thoreau's musings, published as "Thoreau on Man and Nature" in 1961. I bought and read it 40 years later and then savored it again this morning. Let me share just a few passages.

Such is beauty ever—neither here no there, now nor then—neither in Rome nor in Athens, but wherever there is a soul to admire. If I seek her elsewhere because I do not find her at home, my search will prove a fruitless one. (5,6)

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. (12)

Do a little more of that work which you had sometimes confessed to be good, which you feel that society and your justest judge rightly demands of you. Do what you reprove yourself for not doing. Know that you are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with yourself without reason. Let me say to you and to myself in one breath, Cultivate the tree which you have found to bear fruit in your soil. (12)

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, thought they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. (13)

Be resolutely and faithfully what you are, be humbly what you aspire to be. Be sure you give men the best of your wares, though they be poor enough, and the gods will help you to lay up a better store for the future. (13)

Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. (15)

It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. (16)

In the spring I burned over a hundred acres till the earth was sere and black, and by mid-summer this space was clad in a fresher and more luxuriant green than the surrounding even. Shall man then despair? Is he not a sproutland too, after never so many searings and witherings? (17)

Man is the artificer of his own happiness. Let him beware how he complains of the disposition of circumstances, for it is his own disposition he blames. If this is sour, of that rough, or the other steep, let him think if it be not his work. If his look curdles all hearts, let him not complain of a sour reception; if he hobbles in his gait, let him not grumble at the roughness of the way; if he be weak in the knees, let him not call the hill steep. (20,21)

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts. (22)

What other liberty is there worth having, if we have not freedom and peace in our minds—if our inmost and private man is but a sour and turbid pool? (22)

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a down in me. (23)

To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? (24)

You conquer fate by thought. (25)

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. (26)

Our life is frittered away by detail ... Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand. (27)

There is victory in every effort. (30)

Be of good courage! That is the main thing. (31)

The day is never so dark, nor the night even, but that the laws of light still prevail, and so may make it light in our minds if they are open to the truth. I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled through a mud puddle; he comes out honor bright from behind every storm. (32)

Men were born to succeed, not to fail. (33)

The monster is never just where we think he is. What is truly monstrous is our cowardice and sloth. (34)

Surely, joy is the condition of life. (37)

All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love—to sing, and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love. This alone is to be alive to the extremities. It is a pity that this divine creature should ever suffer from cold feet; a still greater pity that the coldness so often reaches to his heart. (40)

We live too fast and coarsely, just as we eat too fast, and do not know the true savor of our food. (42)

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust. (43)

The wise man is restful, never restless or impatient. He each moment abides where he is, as some walkers actually rest the whole body at each step, while others never relax the muscles of the legs till the accumulated fatigue obliges them to stop short. (44)

He is the man truly—courageous, wise, ingenious—who can use his thoughts and ecstasies as the material of fair and durable creations. (47)

And finally, on the end of this life:

So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn. (14)

For the book click HERE.