None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.
Interpretation
Embracing the challenges of nature can elevate your spirit and resilience.
Henry David Thoreau suggests that engaging with the harsh elements of nature, such as walking in stormy weather or deep snow, can be a source of strength and encouragement. He believes that by confronting the difficulties presented by the natural world, individuals can build their inner fortitude and maintain an uplifting spirit despite life's adversities.
In practice
This quote can inspire participants during a nature retreat focused on resilience.
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
It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.
After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with ever-fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames.
As our cities and suburbs relentlessly expand, those priceless open spaces needed for recreation areas accessible to their people are swallowed up-often forever. Unless we preserve these spaces while they are still available, we will have none to preserve.
And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot.
Like all animals, human beings have always taken what they want from nature. But we are the rogue species. We are unique in our ability to use resources on a scale and at a speed that our fellow species can't.
Nature is always behind the age
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