“ When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis. ”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854). copy citation
| Author | Henry David Thoreau |
|---|---|
| Source | Walden |
| Topic | imagination length |
| Date | 1854 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm |
Context
“All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis.
Let us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and anxiety which I have referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that we be troubled, or, at least, careful. It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them;”
source
