A Quote by Henry David Thoreau

One little bird not larger than a sparrow, it may have been a Phalarope, would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the air over the foaming crest of each breaker, but sometimes outriding safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as the breakers in theirs.
A sudden dart when a little over a hundred feet from the end of the track, or a little over 120 feet from the point at which it rose into the air, ended the flight.
It is entirely impossible for man to rise into the air and float there. For this you would need wings of tremendous dimensions and they would have to be moved at three feet per second. Only a fool would expect such a thing to be realized.
My family can tell you I'm not really a guy that likes roller coasters. I don't like going on Ferris wheels. I've got a six-feet rule; I like my feet no more than five, six feet from the ground at all times.
Have you never, when waves were breaking, watched children at sport on the beach, With their little feet tempting the foam-fringe, till with stronger and further reach Than they dreamed of, a billow comes bursting, how they turn and scamper and screech!
I wanted to walk straight on through the red grass and over the edge of the world, which could not be very far away. The light and air abot me told me that the world ended here: only the ground and sun and sky were left, and if one went a little farther there would only be sun and sky, and one would float off into them, like the tawny hawks which sailed over our heads making slow shadows on the grass.
You cannot train saving with your feet, but sometimes it is instinct. Sometimes it is quicker to go with the feet; going with the hands is sometimes more difficult. Even when I was young, I would go with my feet, it's something good for me.
But grief still has to be worked through. It is like walking through water. Sometimes there are little waves lapping about my feet. Sometimes there is an enormous breaker that knocks me down. Sometimes there is a sudden and fierce squall. But I know that many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
In the political jargon of those days, the word "intellectual" was an insult. It indicated someone who did not understand life and was cut off from the people. All the Communists who were hanged at the time by other Communists were awarded such abuse. Unlike those who had their feet solidly on the ground, they were said to float in the air. So it was fair, in a way, that as punishment the ground was permanently pulled out from under their feet, that they remained suspended a little above the floor.
O Shepherd. You said you would make my feet like hinds' feet and set me upon High Places". "Well", he answered "the only way to develop hinds' feet is to go by the paths which the hinds use.
What is the best that lies within us? Of how much are we capable? None of us yet knows. An old Arabic legend tells of a rider finding a spindly sparrow lying on its back in the middle of the road. He dismounted and asked the sparrow why his feet were in the air. Replied the sparrow, "I heard the heavens were going to fall today." "And I suppose you think your puny bird legs can hold up the whole universe?" laughed the horseman. "Perhaps not," said the sparrow with conviction, "but one does whatever one can.
Like a duck on the pond. On the surface everything looks calm, but beneath the water those little feet are churning a mile a minute.
On the surface of the ocean, men wage war and destroy each other; but down here, just a few feet beneath the surface, there is a calm and peace, unmolested by man
In clear weather the laziest may look across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings.
One can see that a canvas is six feet by eight feet, say, quite accurately. But you can spend two minutes and think it's five, or thirty seconds and it's just a different bed for activities there.
If I have one thing perfect, it's my eyebrows. And my feet. I love my feet. They're like Japanese feet. The rest I would like to hide. Especially my freckles. I feel ridiculous.
It is human life. We are blown upon the world; we float buoyantly upon the summer air a little while, complacently showing off our grace of form and our dainty iridescent colors; then we vanish with a little puff, leaving nothing behind but a memory - and sometimes not even that. I suppose that at those solemn times when we wake in the deeps of the night and reflect, there is not one of us who is not willing to confess that he is really only a soap-bubble, and as little worth the making.
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