PhilosophyQuotes for February 28, 2000:

"The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on the fruits, can be preserved only with the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly."

"I found in myself, and still find an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good."

"What if all ponds were shallow? Would it not react on the minds of men? I am thankful that this pond was made deep and pure for a symbol. While men believe in the infinite some ponds will be thought to be bottomless."

-Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Walden (1854)

Walden is available online at Amazon.com.