None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; that is, her scenes must be associated with humane affections, such as are associated with one's native place. She is most significant to a lover. A lover of Nature is preeminently a lover of man. If I have no friend, what is Nature to me? She ceases to be morally significant. . .
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nature's beauty is truly appreciated when connected to human emotion and experiences.
Henry David Thoreau emphasizes that nature's significance is deeply intertwined with human emotions and relationships. He argues that the appreciation for nature grows stronger when it is linked to personal connections and love for one's surroundings and humanity. Without these connections, nature loses its moral and emotional value, highlighting the importance of companionship in experiencing the beauty of the natural world.
Themes
NatureLoveHuman ConnectionEmotionSignificance
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a speech about environmental conservation to emphasize the emotional connection people have with nature.
More from Henry David Thoreau
All quotes →Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.
Henry David ThoreauRead
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.
Henry David ThoreauRead
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.
Henry David ThoreauRead
That grand old poem called Winter
Henry David ThoreauRead
Similar quotes
This beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath.
Gary PaulsenRead
With its array of gadgets and machines, all powered by energies that are destructive of land or air or water, and connected to work, market, school, recreation, etc., by gasoline engines, the modern home is a veritable factory of waste and destruction. It is the mainstay of the economy of money. But within the economies of energy and nature, it is a catastrophe. It takes in the world's goods and converts them into garbage, sewage, and noxious fumes-for none of which have we found a use.
Wendell BerryRead
Now this circumscribed power, which we have scarcely examined, scarcely studied, this power to whose actions we nearly always attribute an intention and a goal, this power, finally, that always does necessarily the same things in the same circumstances and nevertheless does so many and such admirable ones, is what we call 'nature' .
Jean-Baptiste LamarckRead
I choose to listen to the river for a while, thinking river thoughts, before joining the night and the stars.
Edward AbbeyRead
The earth was all before me. With a heart Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, I look about; and should the chosen guide Be nothing better than a wandering cloud, I cannot miss my way.
William WordsworthRead
Nature is the incarnation of thought. The world is the mind precipitated.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead