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A book is a literary compass that has the potential to direct our thoughts and actions:

"Everything we read stimulates our mind to think, and what we think determines what we desire, and desires are the seedbed of our actions. Given this iron law of human nature--from reading to thinking, to desiring, to acting--we are shaping our destiny by the ideas we choose to have enter our minds through print." - Fr. John Hardon, S.J., The Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan

Welcome to my own personal exploration of life through reading the great books of the world.

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"Every soul that uplifts itself uplifts the world." --Elisabeth Leseur

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Saturday, July 28, 2007

Top 10 Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I was looking at my commonplace book and was again struck by the eloquence of Henry David Thoreau. Here are some of my favorite Thoreau quotes, most of them from Walden:
  • I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
  • ...to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment
  • Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
  • In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self in this earth is not a hardship, but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely.
  • The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life.
  • The adventurous student will always study the classics...For what are the classics but noblest recorded thoughts of man. They are the only oracles which are not decayed.
  • Books must be read as reservedly and deliberately as they were written.
  • A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips;--not represented on canvas or marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.
  • How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!
  • If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

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posted by Nick Senger at 6:06 AM

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