Quotes about Existence
God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages.
— Henry David Thoreau
In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.
— Henry David Thoreau
We live a short period of time in this world, but we live it according to the laws of eternal life.
— Henry David Thoreau
I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.
— Henry David Thoreau
This was that Earth of which we have heard, made out of Chaos and Old Night.
— Henry David Thoreau
Being is the great explainer.
— Henry David Thoreau
I am grateful for what I am and have. My Thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing to definite - only a sense of existence
— Henry David Thoreau
I wish to forget, a considerable part of every day, all mean, narrow, trivial men (and this requires usually to forego and forget all personal relations so long), and therefore I come out to these solitudes, where the problem of existence is simplified. I enter some glade in the woods, perchance, where a few weeds and dry leaves alone lift themselves above the surface of the snow, and it is as if I had come to an open window. I see out and around myself.
— Henry David Thoreau
I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear.
— Henry David Thoreau
The unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of God.
— Henry David Thoreau
We are more of the earth, Farther from heaven these days.
— Henry David Thoreau
If you chance to live and move and have your being in that thin stratum in which the events that make the news transpire- thinner than the paper on which it is printed- then these things will fill the world for you; but if you soar above or dive below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them. Really to see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to a universal fact, would preserve us sane forever.
— Henry David Thoreau