From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau, comes this brief description of who Henry David Thoreau was:
Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
Thoreau’s books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
On the last day of August (a hot humid day at that….so I’m feeling lazy), I thought I would post some of Thoreau’s quotes:
I sailed up a river with a pleasant wind, New lands, new people, and new thoughts to find; Many fair reaches and headlands appeared, And many dangers were there to be feared; But when I remember where I have been, And the fair landscapes that I have seen, Thou seemest the only permanent shore, The cape never rounded, nor wandered o’er.” – Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe. – Henry David Thoreau
Everyone must believe in something. I believe I’ll go canoeing. – Henry David Thoreau
I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life; living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness out of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience. – Henry David Thoreau
A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. – Henry David Thoreau, from the chapter “The Ponds” in Walden
Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling. – Henry David Thoreau
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves – Henry David Thoreau
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads – Henry David Thoreau
All good things are wild, and free – Henry David Thoreau
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 speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. — Henry David Thoreau
This curious world we inhabit…is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used. – Henry David Thoreau
In wildness is the preservation of the world. – Henry David Thoreau
We need the tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. – Henry David Thoreau
By the way, as an aside (although I think Thoreau would have appreciated the resourcefulness involved), Mike Elliot of Kettle River Canoes, in his Canoeguy’s Blog, wrote a great post called Wood-Canvas Canoes In A Green Economy, http://canoeguybc.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/wood-canvas-canoes-in-a-green-economy/, which describes the basis behind Mike’s canoe restoration business. I love Mike’s opening statement:
An environmentally friendly approach to the world is based on the “Three R’s”: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. However, there are more: Repair, Restore and Reclaim.
Mike developed a Green business model from the start….and his success comes by reducing, reusing, recycling, repairing, restoring and reclaiming. He provides an example of this in his use of planking from an old salvaged telephone pole or use of hardwood paneling recycled from a house demolition. Mike’s canoe business focuses exclusively on restoration instead of building. Mike realized that he couldn’t make enough from building new canoes, but he could from restoring older still usable canoes. I also like his “adoption” approach where an old canoe is “adopted” by a new owner who pays for the restoration. Check out Mike’s great blog….and look for a book he’s soon to publish on canoe restoration.
Paddles up until later then….and like Thoreau, I think one has to believe in something….so I believe I’ll go canoeing….in a green wood canvas canoe.
