Henry David Thoreau About Wasting Life on Details : “Our life is frittered away by detail.”

I believe by this he means details that don’t actually matter, like minutiae and trivia, such as is stuffed into every extra neuron of my poor, rotten brain.

On a Deacon’s Personal Effects Being Auctioned Off: “Not long since I was present at the auction of a deacon’s effects… And now, after lying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things were not burned; instead of a bonfire, or purifying destruction of them, there was an auction, or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly collected to view them, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till their estates are settled, when they will start again. When a man dies he kicks the dust.”

Thoreau seems to believe strongly in the burning purification of the old. A bit extreme, but there are cultural precedents for it.

On a Lack of Philosophers: “There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live.”

On a Nation of Philosophers: “Certainly no nation that lived simply in all respects, that is, no nation of philosophers, would commit so great a blunder as to use the labor of animals. True, there never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.”

On a Successful Life: “The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?”

On Aiming High: “In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.”

On Anxiety: “In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”

On Awakening : “Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes indifferent all times and places. The place where that may occur is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction. Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are continually being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are.”

On Bankruptcy VS Famine: “Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savage stands on the unelastic plank of famine.”

On Becoming Students and Observers: “With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike. In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident.”

On Behavior: “What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?”

On Being a Philosopher: “To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.” 

On Being Afraid of the Dark: “I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.”

On Being Content with Less: “Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?”

On Being Neighbor to Birds: “The Harivansa says, ‘An abode without birds is like a meat without seasoning.’ Such was not my abode, for I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them.”

On Boundaries: “Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so near that we could not begin to hear—we could not speak low enough to be heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they break each other’s undulations.”

On Chairs in His House: “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another.”

On Children Who Play at Life Better Than Men Who Live It: “Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.”

On Christianity: “We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agri-culture. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb.”

On Civilization: “If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man—and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages—it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

On Civilization (also): “No doubt, they have designs on us for our benefit, in making the life of a civilized people an institution, in which the life of the individual is to a great extent absorbed, in order to preserve and perfect that of the race. But I wish to show at what a sacrifice this advantage is at present obtained, and to suggest that we may possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without suffering any of the disadvantage.”

On Clothes: “…beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.”

On College Students: “I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end… Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges.”

On Danger: “…what danger is there if you don’t think of any?” 

On Decadent Luxuries: “What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations?”

On Dwellings: “Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes.”

On Economy: “Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of.”

On Endeavoring to Be Worthy: “Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world.”

On Eternity and the Universe: “Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.”

…

Many more to come.