Wisdom is the prime thing

Thoreau’s “Walking” is a posthumously-published essay. It deals initially with walking, but eventually with preserving the “Wildness” of nature, and thus preserving the human spirit. Its most famous line is:

… in Wildness is the preservation of the World.

Here are my favorite quotes from his essay.

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly more than that — sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them — as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon — I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.

Especially apropos for those unfortunate souls that spend hours each day staring at a computer screen.

Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth’s servant to show him her master’s study, she answered, “Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.”

Slow, relaxed walking offers time for contemplation. In San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, you can find older Chinese men and women, their hands clasped behind their backs, walking slowly and thoughtfully around Stow Lake each morning before dawn. Perhaps they have read this essay?

For I believe that climate does thus react on man — as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky — our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our plains — our intellect generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers and mountains and forests — and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas.

I think we all know the inspiring effect mountain air has on the spirit.

A man’s ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful — while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with — he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?

The ever-present danger of having the “expert’s mind”. Recognizing our ignorance — embracing the “beginner’s mind” — ensures a life full of learning and growing.

When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?

I don’t think “mall” here has the present-day connotation, but it still works.

Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past.