"It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see."
"As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me the human insect."
3 likes
Source: Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.194, Graphic Arts Books
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
"Simplify your life. Don't waste the years struggling for things that are unimportant. Don't burden yourself with possessions. Keep your needs and wants simple and enjoy what you have. Don't destroy your peace of mind by looking back, worrying about the past. Live in the present. Simplify!"
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined..."
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately."
"be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be."
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us."