A Words Worth of Thoreau

A friend of mine sent this Wordsworth poem (below) to me recently, and it reminds me of a few passages in Henry David Thoreau's "Walden". Thoreau talks about experiencing life as opposed to learning it in a book; of majoring in "Navigation" for four years of college when you would get more from merely sailing out the harbor.

Another way to put it would be that there are two kinds of boys: One who study the stars, and one would be an astronaut. BOTH are needed, but more importantly, we need to be BOTH.

So which one are you lately?

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Tables Turned:

Up! up! my friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double.
Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble. . . .

Books! 'tis a dull and endless trifle:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it. . . .

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things--
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art,
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

--William Wordsworth