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
The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.
It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.
I never considered myself a lucky person. I'm the most extraordinary pessimist. I truly am.
A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality.
I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.
To narrate is to give oneself: it seems obvious that literature, as an effort to communicate fully, will continue to be blocked so long as misery and illiteracy exist, and so long as the possessors of power continue to carry on with impunity their policy of collective imbecilization through the mass media.
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