Quotes About Tranquility

mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived

I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself.

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A

His serenity was but the array of wild flowers niched in his ruin.

It was the air she wanted and the world she would now exclusively choose; the quiet chambers, nobly overwhelming, rich but slightly veiled, opened out round her and made her presently say 'If I could lose myself here!' There were people, people in plenty, but, admirably, no personal question. It was immense, outside, the personal question; but she had blissfully left it outside....

Life is all a green old English garden and time an endless summer afternoon.

If he was not personally loud, however, he was deep, and during these closing days of the Roman May he knew a complacency that matched with slow irregular walks under the pines of the Villa Borghese, among the small sweet meadow-flowers and the mossy marbles.

The day lingered and the last calls of the last birds sounded, in a flushed sky, from the old trees.

strolled down the hill without meeting a creature, though I could see through the palings of the Common that that recreative expanse was peopled with dim forms.  I remembered Mrs. Nettlepoint's house—she lived in those days (they

he wished to do everything because he was lucid and quiet

I am living at the Villa Borghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.

The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment.

Peace! It's wonderful!

but it was night and the night is always less cruel than the day.

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.

How Beautiful is the rain! After the dust and heat, In the broad and fiery street, In the narrow lane, How beautiful is the rain! How it clatters along the roofs, Like the tramp of hoofs! How it gushes and struggles out From the throat of the overflowing spout! Across the window-pane It pours and pours; And swift and wide, With a muddy tide, Like a river down the gutter roars The rain, the welcome rain! -Rain in Summer

If thou art worn and hard beset, With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget; If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, Go to the woods and hills! No tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

STILL stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,   Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.

Silence, healing.

And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there i still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.

Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever. But

there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer.

content with his own companionship;

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn't exist except as a part of everything.