The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics; that is mixed mathematics.
Henry David ThoreauWe should endeavor practically in our lives to correct all the defects which our imagination detects.
Henry David ThoreauI mean that they (students) should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics.
Henry David ThoreauAs for style of writing, if one has anything to say, it drops from him simply and directly, as a stone falls to the ground.
Henry David ThoreauAs for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which is most correct.
Henry David Thoreau