None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
A man may acquire a taste for wine or brandy, and so lose his love for water, but should we not pity him.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on how one's preferences can change over time, often leading to regret or loss of simpler pleasures.
Henry David Thoreau suggests that while a person can develop a fondness for more complex and potentially harmful indulgences like wine or brandy, it is important to feel compassion for him because he may have sacrificed the pure and natural joys of life, represented by water. This highlights the conflict between sophisticated tastes and the value of simplicity.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of maintaining simple pleasures in life.
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
White racial grievance enjoys automatic credibility, and even when disproven, it is never disqualifying of its bearers.
Man makes history; woman is history. The reproduction of the species is feminine: it runs steadily and quietly through all species, animal or human, through all short-lived cultures. It is primary, unchanging, everlasting, maternal, plantlike, and cultureless. If we look back we find that it is synonymous with life itself.
To manage your mind, know that there is nothing, and then relinquish all attachment to nothingness.
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
They'd smash up the world if they thought it would make a pretty noise.
It would be, in fact, very ominous if Iraq were to be able to get weapon-usable material, hydro-plutonium or highly enriched uranium from abroad.
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