Misty sundays are good for some reflection. For literary history I had to read Rousseau's Reveries of a Solitary Walker. I thought he would be another incomprehensible philosopher. But no, the beautiful writing about nature and solidarity struck me. Here some quotes for you from the fifth walk.
About a deserted island he stayed once: "I could have desired that this place of refuge be made my longlife prison. That I be shut up here for the rest of my days, deprived of ancy chance or hope or escaping and forbidden all communication with the mainland, so that not knowing what went on in the world, I should forget it's existence and be forgotten by those who lived in it."
About the calming power of nature:
"The ebb and flow of the water, its continuous yet undublating noise, kept lapping against my ears and my eyes, taking place of all the inward movements witch my reverie had calmed within me, and it was enough to made me pleasurably aware of my existence without troubling myself with thought."
About the constant movement of life:
"Everything is in constant flux on this earth. Nothing keeps te same unchanging shape, and our affections, being attached to things outside us, necessarily change and pass away as they do."
About dreaming:
"Emerging from a long and happy reverie letting my eyes wander over the picturesque far-off shores whitch enclosed a vast stretch of clear and crystalline water, I fused my imaginings witch these charming sights, and finding myself in the end gradually brought back to myself and my surroundings, I could not draw a line between fiction and reality; so much did everything conspire equally to make me love the contemplative and solidary life I led in that beautiful place."
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