Henry David Thoreau Quotes

But I try to steal other moments. Sometimes I get up very early in the morning and enjoy a quiet house and cup of tea before the craziness begins. Other times, I'll take a quick walk on the beach. You can find peace in a few minutes.

I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise til noon, rapt in a revery.

When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing - just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park?

I'm an introvert... I love being by myself, love being outdoors, love taking a long walk with my dogs and looking at the trees, flowers, the sky.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

It's good to do things slow in the bush. It makes you appreciate everything a lot more.

The very pointlessness of a sea walk is it's attractiveness to me.

I love being in the woods, when I can just walk barefoot in the grass and just sit down and breathe. I love that so much.

That quotation about not having time to stand and stare has never applied to me. I seem to have spent a good part of my life - probably too much - in just standing and staring and I was at it again this morning.

the beauty of doing nothing

If I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.

I have a house on the lake, and I must say, sitting on the dock and taking long morning swims or naked swims under the stars, that just brings me back almost immediately.

What do I want to take home from my summer vacation? Time. The wonderful luxury of being at rest. The days when you shut down the mental machinery that keeps life on track and let life simply wander. The days when you stop planning, analyzing, thinking and just are. Summer is my period of grace.

There is nothing like being left alone again, to walk peacefully with oneself in the woods. To boil one's coffee and fill one's pipe, and to think idly and slowly as one does it.

I have laid aside business, and gone a'fishing.

There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.

When you're connected to the ocean, you really don't think about what's going on with your email or texts or any of that. You're just a lot more liberated.

I do fish. I think there is a connection between thinking and fishing mostly because you spend a lot of time up to your waist in water without a whole lot to keep your mind busy.

I like to take walks in the park by myself, where no one can bother me and I can think.

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.

For me, California is all about rest, relaxation, space.

I find music distracting - it takes me out of my head. What I love so much about skiing is the peacefulness.

Something I like to do a lot is just sit by water when there's a current and just stare into the water. I don't fish, I don't hunt, I don't scuba, I don't spear, don't boat, don't play basketball or football - I excel at staring into space. I'm really good at that.

I love to sit on a mountain top and gaze. I don't think of anything but the people I care about and the view.

The point is that when I see a sunset or a waterfall or something, for a split second it's so great, because for a little bit I'm out of my brain, and it's got nothing to do with me. I'm not trying to figure it out, you know what I mean? And I wonder if I can somehow find a way to maintain that mind stillness.