The Crossing

Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862

American Essayist, Poet
and Philosopher

“I went to the woods because
I wanted to live deliberately,
I wanted to live deep and
suck out all the marrow of
life, To put to rout all that
was not life and not when I
had come to die Discover
that I had not lived.”

~“Just remember, the same
as a spectacular Vogue
magazine, remember
that no matter how
close you follow the jumps:
Continued on page whatever.
No matter how careful you
are, there's going to be the
sense you missed something,
the collapsed feeling under
your skin that you didn't
experience it all. There's
that fallen heart feeling
that you rushed right
through the moments where
you should've been paying
attention. Well, get used to that
feeling. That's how your whole
life will feel some day.
This is all practice.
None of this matters.
We're just warming up.”~

The Thoreau Reader

Eloquence in a Waterlily

But it chanced the other
day that I secured a white
water-lily, and a season
I had waited for had
arrived. It is the emblem
of purity. It bursts up
so pure and fair to the eye,
and so sweet to the scent,
as if to show us what
purity and sweetness reside
in, and can be extracted
from, the slime and muck
of earth. I think I have
plucked the first one
that has opened for a mile.
What confirmation
of our hopes is in the
fragrance of this flower!
I shall not so soon despair
of the world for it,

Read more of the
Eloquence in a Waterlily
by
Thoreau