If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can't go at dawn and not many places he read more

If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can't go at dawn and not many places he can't go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking -- one sport you shouldn't have to reserve a time and a court for.

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every read more

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.

The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we read more

The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do.

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, read more

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.

To label me an intellectual is a misunderstanding of what that is.

To label me an intellectual is a misunderstanding of what that is.

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

Rest, rest, shall I have not all eternity to rest.

Rest, rest, shall I have not all eternity to rest.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can read more

When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools.