“This world is but canvas to our imaginations.”
Henry David Thoreau

As soon as I read these bold words, I was inspired to share more of this exuberant, inventive writer’s work with you. Many of these words of wisdom are from Henry’s masterwork, Walden, which was truly appreciated only many years after it was written (see Walden Ponders):

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations….“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”

“All good things are wild and free.”

What a gorgeous writer and and radical thinker! Different drummers — that’s us! Emboldened and encouraged, let’s all write on!