Echoes

We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

The first bond of society is the marriage tie; the next, our children; then the whole family of our house.

There is a love of wild Nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love ever showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves. ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir.

He was that child's stay, and she was his prop. Thanks to him, she could walk through life; thanks to her, he could continue in virtue.

Mother's arms are made of tenderness, and sweet sleep blesses the child who lies within.

Nature everywhere speaks to man in a voice familiar to his soul.

Not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.

I was utterly alone with the sun and the earth. Lying down on the grass, I spoke in my soul to the earth, the sun, the air, and the distant sea far beyond sight. I thought of the earth's firmness — I felt it bear me up; through the grassy couch there came an influence as if I could feel the great earth speaking to me.

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.

One dies twice: to cease to live is nothing, but to cease to love and to be loved is an insupportable death.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

While his parents are alive, the son may not go abroad to a distance. If he does go abroad, he must have a fixed place to which he goes.

It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them.

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.

I was not aware that a father who is a glutton and a drunkard can beget moderate and virtuous children. Nor did I know, though I know it now, that the food which cannot be digested kills, while that which is digested sustains life.

Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness lingers will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone, yes, this helps us to die.

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.

Men are what their mothers made them.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

Our house is our corner of the world. As has often been said, it is our first universe, a real cosmos in every sense of the word.