None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food
Interpretation
Thoreau suggests that those dedicated to cultivating their artistic and spiritual selves often avoid consuming meat.
In this quote, Thoreau conveys the idea that individuals who are truly committed to nurturing their higher sensibilities, such as creativity and spirituality, tend to refrain from eating animal products. He associates a vegetarian lifestyle with a deeper engagement in the poetic and thoughtful aspects of life, implying that such choices can enhance one's connection to higher ideals and foster a more profound existence.
In practice
During discussions on dietary choices at a wellness retreat.
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
Past and future are in the mind only - I am now.
Well I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things. That is exactly what things were originally made for.
Living systems are never in equilibrium. They are inherently unstable. They may seem stable, but theyβre not. Everything is moving and changing. In a sense, everything is on the edge of collapse.
At such times I felt something was drawing me away, and I kept fancying that if I walked straight on, far, far away and reached that line where the sky and earth meet, there I should find the key to the mystery, there I should see a new life a thousand times richer and more turbulent than ours.
Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge - the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them.
Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought
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