None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of living a purposeful life and engaging with essential truths.
In this quote, Thoreau reflects on his choice to retreat into nature as a means of seeking a more authentic and deliberate existence. He desires to strip away the distractions of modern life to confront the fundamental truths of his existence, culminating in the idea that one should live fully to avoid regrets at the end of life.
Themes
LifeNaturePurposeAuthenticityLearning
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about self-discovery and fulfillment.
More from Henry David Thoreau
All quotes βThrough 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
Shortly, the public will be unable to reason or think for themselves. They'll only be able to parrot the information they've been given on the previous night's news.
Zbigniew BrzezinskiRead
Roughly speaking, I think it's accurate to say that a corporate elite of managers and owners governs the economy and the political system as well, at least in very large measure.
Noam ChomskyRead
Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
PlutarchRead
It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place.
Fredric JamesonRead
Do you think it is only a little thing to possess a house from which lovely things can be seen?
Teresa Of AvilaRead
If we don't take responsibility for each other, it seems to me the future is going to be even bleaker.
Margaret MacmillanRead