Sunday, November 4, 2012

This life in the present.

November 4.

Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life.  This life in the present. 

Let a man have thought what he will of Nature in the house, she will still be novel outdoors.  I keep out-of-doors for the sake of the mineral, vegetable, and animal in me.

My thought is a part of the meaning of the world, and hence I use a part of the world as a symbol to express my thought.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 4, 1852

I keep out-of-doors for the sake of the mineral, vegetable, and animal in me. See September 13, 1859 ("You must be outdoors long, early and late, and travel far and earnestly, in order to perceive the phenomena of the day."); December 29, 1856 (“We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. We must make root, send out some little fibre at least, even every winter day. I am sensible that I am imbibing health when I open my mouth to the wind. Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always.”); July 14, 1854 ("Health is a sound relation to nature.”); 

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