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Henry David Thoreau Quotes

"Each stick I deal with has a history, and I read it as I am handling it, and, last of all, I remember my adventures in getting it, while it is burning in the winter evening."

This quote is fairly self explanatory. What it means is that everything you look at has some past and has come from somewhere. While you cannot be what you are seeing, you can learn a lot about it through observation. Looking at a stick, Thoreau sees where the stick came from and visualises what it might have been a part of. He becomes one with it and it makes him content that he has made a new friend. The main reason for this quote is that it serves as a bell of mindfulness to wake up and take a look around to see what is there because there is always something new.

"The mind that perceives clearly any natural beauty is in that instant withdrawn from human society."

This is another self explanatory quote. What it is saying is that there is something to be said for being mindful. As Thoreau has said before, being one with one's surroundings is an experience that cannot be described but only felt. When one experiences this, they aren't thinking but taking in what is around them. This leaves no room for thinking about what has happened in the past or what is to come in the future. At this point society does not exist. It is living in the present and being mindful.