Quotes About Balance

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a spectulator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.

The true price of anything you do is the amount of time you exchange for it.

Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.

A man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting his living.

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust.

Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.

If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, to life itself, than this incessant business.

I love a broad margin to my life.

I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a passtime, if we live simply and wisely

The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world.

Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more, and withdrawing into the wilderness.

My life has been the poem I could have writ But I could not both live and utter it.

To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exlcude yourself from the true enjoyment of it.

the mission of men there seems to be,like so many busy demons,to drive the forest out of the country.

There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony.

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?

Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows.

In wildness is the preservation of the world.

In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.

Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.