The past is only a guidepost. . . not a hitching post.
Unpremeditated music is the true gauge which measures the current of our thoughts; the very undertow of our life's stream.
Simplify your life. Don't waste the years struggling for things that are unimportant. Don't burden yourself with possessions. Keep your needs and wants simple and enjoy what you have. Don't destroy your peace of mind by looking back, worrying about the past. Live in the present. Simplify!
It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. I wish to live ever as to derive my satisfactions and inspirations from the commonest events, everyday phenomena, so that what my senses hourly perceive, my daily walk, the conversation of my neighbors, may inspire me, and I may dream of no heaven but that which lies about me.
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
It is not your sin - it is your moderation that cries to heaven; your very sparingness in sin cries to heaven!
I keep all my poems in my journals and lock them away. They are the start of everything.
We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying.
If you look at items of clothing like denim or polo shirts, they came from someone else's idea and everyone now makes them, but even so, I sometimes want to buy into the newer thing because it looks good or whatever. I mean, I copy many things - almost everything I do could be called a copy in some way. But I copy with a certain respect. I have a high regard for the original, and so I want to put my twist onto that. It's just like sampling music - when it's done well, the new work communicates a respect for the original source material.