Wednesday, January 23, 2013

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.
-Henry David Thoreau


You know, I recently read through my favorite book, "Walden."  I've read it a handful of times and I never fail to find something new, something I didn't notice the first time.  There have been dozens of times that I just pick up this book, flip to a page and see what I come up with.  I mean, every other sentence in this book is quote worthy.  This particular quote caught my attention the other day and its been stuck in my head ever since.  Worthy of sharing it here and my thoughts on it.

I have read so many books with the intention of finding in it something that will give me a better understanding of life, thus a better understanding of myself in it.  I read, searching to find out what others have found in their lives and how the world turned for them.  It's always about knowledge and to understand something from a perspective not my own.  There comes a point, however, where I was filled with all kinds of knowledge that was sitting, stagnant.  Like anything else, ideas get old and stale when not using them.  For how long can you continue to take in ideas and not try them on for size?  Some of them fit, and a lot don't.  I've managed to let ideas rise up in me and fall to the wayside without any regret.  I don't speak of it to boost my ego, rather to keep it in check.  Just when I think I know it all I can pick up a book and read something the complete opposite of my own line of thinking and find that I had been wrong.  If nothing else I have learned to keep an open mind and not discriminate against the ideas of another.  The moment that happens is the same moment I stop learning or moving forward.  And let me tell you, that does happen.

I read everything with the intent of gaining something.  I don't care if you're an award winning author or some Joe blogger such as myself.  I suppose I write with the intention of giving back a bit of what I've been given through the written word of people.  It's a beautiful thing when you think about it.  I can't put a price on what I know.  And even though it's not much, I do know something.  We all know something which can be the spark to light the fire up under somebody.  You never know.

What kind of thoughts does that quote stir inside you?

6 comments:

  1. Repeating someone else's words out loud, tasting them in my mouth. Ruminating and dissecting them down to bare bones and then constructing my own interpretation.

    I do love quotable quotes.

    xx
    Lulu
    Breakfast After 10

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  2. I may be weird, but I don't have a favorite quote. I did have a few quotes that I did like. Then after awhile, I find another quote contradicting my original quote in some sort of fashion. After I get to going on contradictions and exceptions, I get lost in thinking. I tend to lose interest in my quotes quicker than quick sand. Unless, they are inside jokes.

    There I go again. Exceptions and contradictions. =]

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  3. To me, the quote speaks to the wonders of reading. There are few things as amazing as getting engrossed in a good story. It's a way to enter another world...

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  4. after i read your posts it makes me want to go out and act it. i want to disengage and get lost in my own thought. i want to be more mindful, you have opened a new light in me! :)

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    Replies
    1. I appreciate that, thank you. That shit wants to go straight to my ego, but i accept it humbly.

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