"Do you know how the naturalist learns..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
Do you know how the naturalist learns all the secrets of the forest, of plants, of birds, of beasts, of reptiles, of fishes, of the rivers and the sea? When he goes into the woods the birds fly before him and he finds none; when he goes to the river bank, the fish and the reptile swim away and leave him alone. His secret is patience; he sits down, and sits still; he is a statue; he is a log.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“Being a teacher is like being in jail; once it's on your record, you can never get rid of it.”
“The eye which can appreciate the naked and absolute beauty of a scientific truth is far more rare than that which is attracted by a moral one.”
“The walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours ... but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day.”
More on Nature
“Art imitates Nature in this; not to dare is to dwindle.”
“The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water, - so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be.”
“You are the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long. You are the breathless hush of evening that trembles on the brink of a lovely song.”
More on Learning
“Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.”
“It is necessary to master Marxist theory and apply it, master it for the sole purpose of applying it. If you can apply the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint in elucidating one or two practical problems, you should be commended and credited with some achievement.”
“Being # IGNORANT is not so much a SHAME, as being UNWILLING to LEARN to do things THE # RIGHT WAY.”