Quotes About Mindfulness

Our life is frittered away by detail.

Ich ging in die Wälder, weil ich bewusst leben wollte. Ich wollte das Dasein auskosten. Ich wollte das Mark des Lebens einsaugen! Und alles fortwerfen, das kein Leben barg, um nicht an meinem Todestag Innezuwerden, daß ich nie gelebt hatte.

Never trust any thought arrived at sitting down.

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. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?

Do not engage to find things as you think they are.

I like sometimes to take rank hold on life and spend my day more as the animals do.

It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.

It is not enought to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

It matters not where or how far you travel,--the farther commonly the worse,--but how much alive you are.

What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring.

what danger is there if you don't think of any?)

Warum leben wir in solcher Hast, mit solcher Vergeudung von Leben? Wir glauben, Hungers zu sterben, bevor wir hungrig sind. Es heißt, ein Stich zur rechten Zeit erspart neun andere - also werden lieber gleich tausend Stiche gemacht, um neun für den nächsten Tag zu ersparen.

The rays which stream through the shutter will be no longer remembered when the shutter is wholly removed.

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands.

I was describing the other day my success in solitary and distant woodland walking outside the town. I do not go there to get my dinner, but to get that sustenance which dinners only preserve me to enjoy, without which dinners are a vain repetition.

The truly efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.