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.
~ Henry David Thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau
Tradition
For the majority of mankind, religion is a habit, or, more precisely, tradition is their religion. Though it seems strange, I think that the first step to moral perfection is your liberation from the religion in which you were raised. Not a single person has come to perfection except by following this way.
~ Henry David Thoreau
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Strike at the root
There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
~ Henry David Thoreau
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Quiet desperation
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
~ Henry David Thoreau
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Sight
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
~ Henry David Thoreau
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Where we are
That’s where we are as a culture. We run desperately to abstraction and avoid action at all costs. Thoreau’s man of “quiet desperation” has never been so prevalent. The world is full of men who are “stuck” in life. There has been some mass paralysis. Modern man has forgotten how to take action.
~ Kyle Eschenroeder from, https://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/05/19/10-overlooked-truths-about-taking-action/
Curious: My self-perception is that I too often charge ahead doing things. By which I mean, I should more often take some time to reflect, think-through, etc. I am frequently way off on a tangent doing something, which from the hind-sight of next year, was clearly not a good expenditure of my efforts.
Curiouser: Others tell me that I spend way too much time figuring out systems and trying to sort-out/plan every little detail of something. When what’s needed is to make a few steps forward.
Curiouser and curiouser: What if both of these ideas are perfectly correct/true?
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