None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nature's strength and integrity inspire our own lives.
In this quote, Thoreau emphasizes how the steadfastness of trees like pines and maples reflects nature's enduring strength and moral integrity. He suggests that being in the presence of such natural beauty provides a necessary relief for our human experiences, highlighting the connection between our lives and the natural world.
Themes
NatureIntegrityStrengthTreesReliefBeauty
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about the importance of nature conservation, this quote can illustrate the impact of nature on our lives.
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
London perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play and a story and a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets... To walk alone through London is the greatest rest.
Virginia WoolfRead
Earlier, 100,000 elephants lived in Kenya and we didn't have any noteworthy problem with it. The problem that we have is not that there are now more elephants.
Richard LeakeyRead
Walking on willow tree roads by a river dappled with peach blossoms, I look for spring light, but am everywhere lost. Birds fly up and scatter floating catkins. A ponderous wave of flowers sags the branches.
Wang WeiRead
A week of sweeping fogs has passed over and given me a strange sense of exile and desolation. I walk round the island nearly every day, yet I can see nothing anywhere but a mass of wet rock, a strip of surf, and then a tumult of waves.
John Millington SyngeRead
Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn, and to sing at dusk, was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.
Terry Tempest WilliamsRead
Gardening is a labour full of tranquility and satisfaction; natural and instructive, and as such contributes to the most serious contemplation, experience, health and longevity.
John EvelynRead