7.29.2014

of hints and suggestions
...Thoreau's Journal: 29-Jul-1857

I am interested in an indistinct prospect, a distant view, a mere suggestion often, revealing an almost wholly new world to me. I rejoice to get, and am apt to present, a new view. But I find it impossible to present my view to most people. In effect, it would seem that they do not wish to take a new view in any case. Heat lightning flashes, which reveal a distant horizon to our twilight eyes. But my fellows simply assert that it is not broad day, which everybody knows, and fail to perceive the phenomenon at all. I am willing to pass for a fool in my own desperate, perhaps foolish, efforts to persuade them to lift the veil from off the possible and future, which they hold down with both their hands, before their eyes. The most valuable communication or news consists of hints and suggestions. When a truth comes to be known and accepted, it begins to be bad taste to repeat it. Every individual constitution is a probe employed in a new direction, and a wise man will attend to each one’s report.

4 comments:

michael jameson said...

to most people the knowledge they have is verbatim the truth!, unbending they are!, and when proven wrong the facts before them, its the most bitter pill! that takes a while to digest!,,to give information of any sort that might conflict with what someone thinks or knows,should not!be received with anything but open arms!,to ponder to discuss to imagine!, use the eyes and mind of a child!, wisdom might be your only reward! what a reward!!. michael jameson oldantiqueguy@hotmail.com

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Most people just look at me like I'm speaking a foreign langauge if I say something that doesn't fit their notions. I heard a preacher say last night that the reason people become demon possessed is because they think; that we shouldn't think but just act on God's word. How did he com up with that.

Randy Waltrip said...

Doubt is an irritant most people despise. It is not new worlds they sail towards, but old thoughts.