The Great Affair

Source: Serena Alexis

The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live
as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like
a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop
over the thick, sun-struck hills every day.

Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat
and unyielding, and, despite all its dimensions, valleys,
pinnacles, and detours, life will seem to have none of
its magnificent geography, only a length.

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what
a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

~ Diane Ackerman

The Great Affair

Source: Serena Alexis

The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live
as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like
a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop
over the thick, sun-struck hills every day.

Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat
and unyielding, and, despite all its dimensions, valleys,
pinnacles, and detours, life will seem to have none of
its magnificent geography, only a length.

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what
a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

~ Diane Ackerman

Quote on walking

Photo credit: hotblack from morguefile.com

Few men know how to take a walk. The qualifications of a professor are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for Nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much. If a man tells me that he has an intense love of Nature, I know, of course, that he has none. Good observers have the manners of trees and animals, their patient good sense, and if they add words, t'is only when words are better than silence. But a loud singer, or a story-teller, or a vain talker profanes the river and the forest, and is nothing like so good company as a dog.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote on walking

Photo credit: hotblack from morguefile.com

Few men know how to take a walk. The qualifications of a professor are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for Nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much. If a man tells me that he has an intense love of Nature, I know, of course, that he has none. Good observers have the manners of trees and animals, their patient good sense, and if they add words, t'is only when words are better than silence. But a loud singer, or a story-teller, or a vain talker profanes the river and the forest, and is nothing like so good company as a dog.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson