Rom Essay Quotes and Translations

The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are always inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression when the mind is open to their influence.

Although we recognize that the stars in the skies are omnipresent, we can never touch them or capture them. We can, however, still be influenced by them, if we allow ourselves to stay connected to nature and its grandeur.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

Carpe diem, no regrets, live your life fully.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.

Scale back on the excess of your life, whether its scheduling commitments, material possessions. Stop trying to have it all and do it all and focus on fewer things with more intensity.

In the woods is perpetual youth. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life - no disgrace, no calamity, which nature cannot repair.

The constantly new and renewing aspects of nature can make adults feel childlike again. Nature seems timeless. People experiencing nature might feel ageless. No problems in the world seem insurmountable when one returns to Nature's refuge.

Few adults can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing.

The older we get, the more responsibilities we have bestowed upon us, the more worries that consume us, the more difficult it becomes to appreciate and lose ourselves in nature. As a result, our imagination decreases and becomes lost, causing us to lose a sense of self-discovery through nature.

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

The writer is comparing the beat of drums to the beating of his own heart. A man must listen to the beat of his heart and step to the sound of it to accomplish his true passion, rather than stepping to the beat of someone else's drum.

I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

Through nature, you can lose yourself and your ego. In a soothing way, you can become nothing and everything at the same time. You can feel as close to God or the Greater Being as possible when you allow yourself to let go in nature.

To go into solitude, a man needs to retire from his chamber as from society.

To be truly alone, a person needs to be able to isolate himself not only from all that with which you are familiar and instead surround yourself with nature. This includes your TECHNOLOGY.

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.

We don't control our technology; it controls us. We don't own our stuff; our stuff owns us.

"Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way? What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another."

We separate ourselves by choice. Physical proximity does not equate to emotional connection.

Envy is ignorance.

You can't focus on what gifts you have if you spend all your time being jealous of others.

Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you; the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

You have to believe in yourself and recognize that every person has his/her own role to play that no one else has. You are a part of the universe and a higher being holds a specific purpose for you.

The sun illuminates only the eye of the man but shines into the eye and heart of the child.

Many adults lose their sense of childlike curiosity and wonder, particularly when it comes to the appreciation of nature.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

People who never think outside of the box, who just go with tradition, are robbed of their potential for understanding.

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.

He retreated to nature so that he could focus on what truly matters and in doing so, he hoped to life his life to the fullest and not regret anything by the end of his life. We fear death because we don't think we have fully lived. Don't take for granted the precious time you have. Make it count.

"If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

If you believe in your own dreams and work hard to make those dreams reality, you will experience a level of success (whether financial or personal) that can't compare to succeeding without being true to yourself. Perseverance equates to success.

Imitation is suicide.

If you focus only on trying to be like everyone else, you're actually killing the unique qualities that make you YOU.

"This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?"

When put in perspective Earth is tiny in relation to all the planets and stars that exist in the universe. We can't even measure the size or diameter of stars in the universe with the tools we have now. In comparison to space, we are always close to other human beings on this "tiny" planet.

Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. . . .

When society judges, persecutes, or rejects you for your views, consider some of the greatest minds who were also treated that way. People just weren't ready for those new ideas.

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.

When we are alone, we have our own thoughts and ideas, but when we go out into the world, literally or virtually, we are influenced by others and struggle to hear our own voice.

"I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live and could not spare any more time for that one."

When you have realized the lessons from any one life experience and feel that we've gotten as much out of it as we can, we should move on to the next new experience.

"It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route (routine), and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond side."

Without routines we can become lost in chaos, but we have to be careful not to get stuck in our routines to the point that we stop "living" life and just start existing.