#age

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#education #enlightenment #heritage #knowledge #treasures

When I was a kid of six or seven, I used to get up on the stove woodpile for a stage and I'd put on the wildest show. ↗

— Jerry Reed

#i #kid #put #seven #show

Almost I feel the pulsebeat of the ages, Now swift, now slow, beneath my fingertips. The heartthrobs of the prophets and the sages Beat through these bindings; and my quick hand slips Old books from dusty shelves, in eager seeking For truths the flaming tongues of the ancients tell; For the words of wisdom that they still are speaking As clearly as an echoing silver bell. Here is the melody that lies forever At the deep heart of living; here we keep The accurate recorded discs that never Can be quite silenced, though their makers sleep The still deep sleep, so long as a seeker finds The indelible imprint of their moving minds. ↗

— Grace Noll Crowell

#posterity #reading #age

We're so old that the winds of age echo along our ribs and pick at our eye sockets. We could be gone tomorrow. A chill, say, or a little slip on the cliff side. I feel as fragile as a dried flower. I rattle a little in the moving air, but I'm only coherent dust-a shape of what once was. My essence is going. ↗

— Sheri S. Tepper

#death #age

They were both at such an age that they stood on a cusp. They could think in one part of their minds that their whole lives stretched out before them without boundary or limit. At the same time another part guessed that youth was about over for them and what lay ahead was another country entirely, wherein the possibilities narrowed down moment by moment. ↗

— Charles Frazier

#mountain #age

Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others ... Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth." (Journal entry, 14 October 1922) ↗

— Katherine Mansfield

#daring #empowerment #risk #self-confidence #self-determination

... Nature almost surely operates by combining chance with necessity, randomness with determinism... ↗

— Eric Chaisson

#determinism #nature #necessity #randomness #age

Not only is our love for our children sometimes tinged with annoyance, discouragement, and disappointment, the same is true for the love our children feel for us. ↗

— Bruno Bettelheim

#children #disappointment #discouragement #feel #love

I'd learned myself by the age of sixteen that just as girls guarded their virginity, boys guarded something less tangible which they called Themselves. ↗

— Joyce Johnson

#beats #feminism #age

We survey lush landscapes with variations not dissimilar to a so-called "imperfect" female body with absolute pleasure -- say, an expanse of Irish countryside with grassy rolling hills. But is it really so much uglier when it's made of flesh instead of soil? ↗

— Kim Brittingham

#diet #self-esteem #weight-loss #diet