A Quote by Henry David Thoreau
I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure.
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The thought of both East and West (philosophies) can indeed be integrated into a higher truth. They show us that the West is correct in maintaining that life is about progress about evolving toward something higher. Yet the East is also correct in emphasizing that we must let go of control with the ego. We can't progress by using logic alone. We have to attain a fuller consciousness, an inner connection with God, because only then can our evolution toward something better be guided by a higher part of ourselves.
Every sunset I witness inspires me with the desire to go to West as distant and as fair as that which the sun goes down. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.
Force was the factor in the government of the world when Christ was born, and force was the source and exercise of authority both by Church and State when Columbus sailed from Palos. The Wise Men traveled from the East toward the West under the guidance of the Star of Bethlehem. The spirit of the equality of all men before God and the law moved westward from Calvary with its revolutionary influence upon old institutions, to the Atlantic Ocean. Columbus carried it westward across the seas.
Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return-prepared to send beck our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, brother and sister, and wife and child and friends and never see them again,-if you have paid your debts and made your will, and settled your affairs and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.
Intellectual methods-study and reason-are essential to our progress toward eternal life, but they are not sufficient. They can prepare the way. They can get the mind ready to receive the Spirit. But what the scriptures call conversion-the change of mind and heart that gives us the direction and strength to move resolutely toward eternal life-comes only by the witness and power of the Holy Spirit.
Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.
Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.
What we've witnessed in the past 25 or 30 years is just incredible. We've birthed 30,000 or 40,000 restaurants. I used to go to Europe every year to get experience [and ideas]. I don't go to Europe anymore. I go to Oregon, I go to Washington, I go to Louisiana, I go to Little Rock, I go to Austin, I travel New York City. I don't go to Europe anymore.
Art is the distillate of life, the winnowed result of the experience of a people, the record of the joyous adventure of the creative spirit in us toward a higher world; a world in which all ideas, thoughts, and forms are pure and beautiful and completely clear, the world Plato held to be perfect and eternal. All works that have in them an element of joy are records of this adventure.
I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.
We can continue our progress as a Nation toward the promise that all people are created equal and that our Nation will treat every person in that spirit.
I do not feel that the West has really become less condescending toward foreign cultures than the Greeks and Romans were: it has only become more tolerant. Mind you, not toward Islam—only toward certain other Eastern cultures, which offer some sort of spiritual attraction to the spirit-hungry West and are, at the same time, too distant from the Western world-view to constitute any real challenge to its values.
The study of history, it seems to me, leads to the conviction that all important events tend toward the same end - the civilization of mankind.
Each one of us has some goal we want to reach, and we must work toward that goal one step at a time. You can’t reach toward that goal and expect it on the first try. All your small steps will bring you just a little closer. You must continue to work toward this goal. You may take a few steps back or be at a standstill, but you will be learning from each step. Through hard work, self-confidence and motivation, you will find ways to move ahead. You alone can help yourself to move ahead in life and gain personal satisfaction. You only get out of life what you put into it.
Yes, creation is moving toward us; life is moving toward us all the time. We back away, but it keeps pushing toward us. Why not step forward and greet it.
One task of literature is to formulate questions and construct counterstatements to the reigning pieties. And even when art is not oppositional, the arts gravitate toward contrariness. Literature is dialogue: responsiveness. Literature might be described as the history of human responsiveness to what is alive and what is moribund as cultures evolve and interact with one another.
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