Henry David Thoreau
1854 · Massachusetts, USA
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Walden
More from Henry David Thoreau · #mindset
In the same thread
Li Bai 李白
earlier 8th century · Tang China
You ask me why I live in the green hills. I smile and do not answer, and my heart is at ease. Peach blossom on the stream drifts off into the distance. There is another heaven and earth here, not the world of men.
問余何意栖碧山，笑而不荅心自閑。
桃花流水窅然去，別有天地非人間。"Question and Answer in the Mountains"
Wang Wei 王維
mid-8th century · Tang China
I get down from my horse and offer you wine, and ask you where you are going. You say that nothing has gone as you wished, and you will go back to lie at the foot of the southern hills. Go, then. I will ask no more. The white clouds there have no end.
下馬飲君酒，問君何所之。
君言不得意，歸臥南山陲。
但去莫復問，白雲無盡時。"Farewell," in the Complete Tang Poems
Jia Dao 賈島
early 9th century · Tang China
Under the pines I asked the boy. He said, "The master has gone to gather herbs. He is somewhere on this mountain, but the clouds are deep and I do not know where."
松下問童子，言師採藥去。
只在此山中，雲深不知處。"Looking for a Hermit and Not Finding Him"
Yi I 李珥
16th century · Joseon Korea
Gathering herbs, I suddenly lost the path: a thousand peaks, all deep in autumn leaves. A mountain monk goes home with the water he has drawn, and at the edge of the wood, smoke rises from the tea.
採藥忽迷路 千峯秋葉裏
山僧汲水歸 林末茶煙起Yulgok jeonseo, "In the Mountains"
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us