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Henry David Thoreau's insights on Mindfulness aren't theoretical—they're battle-tested wisdom from someone who operated at the highest level. This collection distills that experience into quotable principles, each with source context for verification. When you're navigating Mindfulness in the real world, these quotes offer the kind of practical guidance that only comes from direct experience.
"Who looks in the sun will see no light else; but also he will see no shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the same, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul. March 10, 1841"
Website: Wikiquote - Henry David Thoreau (Journals (1838-1859))
"Gradually the village murmur subsided, and we seemed to be embarked on the placid current of our dreams, floating from past to future as silently as one awakes to fresh morning or evening thoughts."
Website: Wikiquote - Henry David Thoreau (A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849))
"Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body. They are infra-human, a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called. p. 495"
Website: Wikiquote - Henry David Thoreau (Life Without Principle (1863))
"Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable. No day will have been wholly misspent, if one sincere, thoughtful page has been written. Let the daily tide leave some deposit on these pages, as it leaves sand and shells on the shore. So much increase of terra firma. this may be a calendar of the ebbs and flows of the soul; and on these sheets as a beach, the waves may cast up pearls and seaweed. July 6, 1840"
Website: Wikiquote - Henry David Thoreau (Journals (1838-1859))
"An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. April 20, 1840"
Website: Wikiquote - Henry David Thoreau (Journals (1838-1859))
Seeing how Henry David Thoreau approaches Mindfulness helps you apply the idea with more precision.
Pick one quote to guide a decision today, then return for deeper perspective.
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"Use this collection whenever you need Henry David Thoreau's lens on Mindfulness."