As the wise is not anxious that time wait for him, neither does he wait for it

September 17

Septmeber 17, 2019

Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace.

The bud swells imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion, as though the short spring days were an eternity.

All her operations seem separately, for the time, the single object for which all things tarry.

Why, then, should man hasten as if anything less than eternity were allotted for the least deed?

Let him consume never so many æons, so that he go about the meanest task well, though it be but the paring of his nails.

If the setting sun seems to hurry him to improve the day while it lasts, the chant of the crickets fails not to reassure him, even-measured as of old, teaching him to take his own time henceforth forever.

The wise man is restful, never restless or impatient. 

He each moment abides there where he is, as some walkers actually rest the whole body at each step.

As the wise is not anxious that time wait for him, neither does he wait for it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 17, 1839

Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace. See September 17, 1857 ("How perfectly each plant has its turn! – as if the seasons revolved for it alone."); September 10, 1860 ("Almost every plant, however humble, has thus its day,"); September 24, 1859 ("Great works of art have endless leisure for a background, as the universe has space. Time stands still while they are created. The artist cannot be in [a] hurry. The earth moves round the sun with inconceivable rapidity, and yet the surface of the lake is not ruffled by it. "); see also September 13, 1852 ("The plant waits a whole year, and then blossoms the instant it is ready and the earth is ready for it, without the conception of delay."); July 19, 1851 ("This rapid revolution of nature, even of nature in me, why should it hurry me?"); August 19, 1851 ("The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other."); April 24, 1859 ("Man's moods and thoughts revolve just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s."); and also see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Seasons Revolve; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature