"It is not the ctitic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

~Theodore Roosevelt

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Henry David Thoreau

Just writing out my most embarrassing moment in French... not as bad as I expected. Though, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to make it a whole page long. I don't have that much to say! And really, I just picked a semi-embarrassing moment that I could take a paragraph or two to set up. I'll be exaggerating, don't even worry :)

I am extremely glad we don't have accents in English though. They are such a pain!

Anyway, I spent a good chunk of the last two days (really only a few hours stretched out over two days) reading 42 pages of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. The part labeled "Economy" I think... We read some of it in high school and I loved it. One of the few books I actually enjoyed in school and wanted to read all of afterwards... though I still haven't gotten around to it. And while 42 pages in an anthology kind of sucks for homework, it wasn't too bad. Haha, not like some of my British lit reading, that's for sure.

When I read I often highlight my favorite parts-or dog-ear the pages that had parts I liked. When I do homework I always highlight so I can remember what was said when I scan it in class. But reading this I highlighted for both reasons. So I just wanted to share some of my favorite lines :) Ya, I probably understand some of them different than everyone else-thus my problem with some of my English classes. But one of the things I like about this is how some of it can be interpreted differently.

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

"But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."

"if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior."

"The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot"

"Often if an accident happens to a gentleman's legs, they can be mended; but if a similar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is no hope for it"

"In the long run men hit only what they aim at."

"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new."

"I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground."

"After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages"

"Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants."

"When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his all,-looking like an enormous wen which had grown out of the nape of his neck,-I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry."

"We make curious mistakes sometimes."

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
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