get your living by loving

.

The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body - 

so that life be not a failure... 

If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, 

as most appear to do, 

I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for.  

I trust that I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage.  

I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well.  

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.  

All great enterprises are self-supporting.  

The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, 

as a steam planing mill feeds its boiler with the shavings it makes.  

You must get your living by loving.

.

~ Henry David Thoreau

from his journal, March 13, 1853

art by roderick maclver