Live all that can be lived .

November 23

To-day it has been finger-cold. Unexpectedly I find ice by the side of the brooks this afternoon nearly an inch thick.  If I am surprised to find ice on the sides of the brooks, I am much more surprised to find a pond in the woods, containing an acre or more, quite frozen over so that I walk across it. 

It is in a cold corner, where a pine wood excludes the sun. (In the larger ponds and the river, of course, there is no ice yet.) It is a shallow, weedy pond. I lay down on the ice and look through at the bottom.

I find it to be the height of wisdom not to endeavor to oversee myself and live a life of prudence and commonsense, but to see over and above myself, entertain sublime conjectures, to make myself the thoroughfare of thrilling thoughts, live all that can be lived.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 23, 1850

It is in a cold corner, where a pine wood excludes the sun. See November 14, 1851 ("Unexpectedly find Heywood's Pond frozen over thinly, it being shallow and coldly placed. ")

To make myself the thoroughfare of thrilling thoughts, live all that can be lived. Compare November 23, 1853 ("I must make my life more moral, more pure and innocent. . . .I must not live loosely, but more and more continently."). . See also September 17, 1851 (“How to live. How to get the most life. The art of spending a day. Can a youth, a man, do more wisely than to go where his life is to be found? To observe what transpires, not in the street, but in the mind and heart of me!”); March 15, 1852 (" My life partakes of infinity.”); May 6, 1854 ("All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love, — to sing; and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love. This alone is to be alive to the extremities."); July 21, 1853 ("The sun is now warm on my back, and when I turn round I shade my face with my hands. Nature is beautiful only as a place where a life is to be lived. It is not beautiful to him who has not resolved on a beautiful life."); March 13, 1853 ("The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body. For instance, a poet must sustain his body with his poetry. You must get your living by loving."); May 8, 1854 ("I look round with a thrill on this bright fluctuating surface on which no man can walk, whereon is no trace of footstep, unstained as glass. I feel exhilaration, mingled with a slight awe, as I drive before this strong wind over the great black-backed waves . . .");and Walden, Where I lived and what I lived for ("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. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”)

Nov. 23. To-day it has been finger-cold. Unexpectedly I found ice by the side of the brooks this afternoon nearly an inch thick. Prudent people get in their barrels of apples to-day. The difference of the temperature of various localities is greater than is supposed. If I was surprised to find ice on the sides of the brooks, I was much more surprised to find quite a pond in the woods, containing an acre or more, quite frozen over so that I walked across it. It was in a cold corner, where a pine wood excluded the sun. In the larger ponds and the river, of course, there is no ice yet. It is a shallow, weedy pond. I lay down on the ice and looked through at the bottom. The plants appeared to grow more up rightly than on the dry land, being sustained and protected by the water. Caddis-worms were everywhere crawling about in their handsome quiver-like sheaths or cases. The wild apples, though they are more mellow and edible, have for some time lost their beauty, as well as the leaves, and now too they are beginning to freeze. The apple season is well-nigh over. Such, however, as are frozen while sound are not unpleasant to eat when the spring sun thaws them. I find it to be the height of wisdom not to endeavor to oversee myself and live a life of prudence and com mon sense, but to see over and above myself, entertain sublime conjectures, to make myself the thoroughfare of thrilling thoughts, live all that can be lived. The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he not do?