“Charles Sumner's mind had reached the calm of WATER which receives and reflects images without absorbing them; it contains nothing but itself.”
Calm feeling
Calm Quotes — page 260 of 276
“Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life. This life in the present.”
“Remember that you need not eat unless you are hungry.”
“I think of no news to tell you. It is a serene summer day here, all above the snow. The hens steal their nests, and I steal theireggs still, as formerly. This is what I do with the hands. Ah, labor,--it is a divine institution, and conversation with many men and hens.”
“To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating.”
“My life is like a stroll upon the beach.”
“The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate the world....There is naked Nature, inhumanly sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling at the cliffy shore where gulls wheel amid the spray.”
“Let a slight snow come and cover the earth, and the tracks of men will show how little the woods and fields are frequented.”
“It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the restless class of Reformers. What if these grievances exist? So do you and I.”
“Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves. . . .”
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart, with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way.”
“Oh, one world at a time!”
“Certainly, we do not need to be soothed and entertained always like children. He who resorts to the easy novel, because he is languid, does no better than if he took a nap.”
“The poet will maintain serenity in spite of all disappointments. He is expected to preserve an unconcerned and healthy outlook over the world, while he lives.”
“In clear weather the laziest may look across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings.”
“I noticed, as I had done before, that there was a lull among the mosquitoes about midnight, and that they began again in the morning. Nature is thus merciful. But apparently they need rest as well as we.”
“I now first began to inhabit my house, I may say, when I began to use it for warmth as well as shelter.”
“This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore.”
“Really to see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to a universal fact, would preserve us sane forever.”
“We could not help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man. His words and actions presume alwaysa crisis near at hand, but she is forever silent and unpretending.”