“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
Annie Dillard · The Writing Life, 1989
quolira
quolira.com
Rest and be thankful.
About this quote
Meaning
In just four words, this phrase combines two distinct but related instructions. To rest is to stop, to let the body and mind recover. To be thankful is to turn attention outward and recognize the worth of what surrounds you. Together they suggest that stillness is not empty but can be filled with quiet gratitude. The line asks you not merely to pause but to be present and appreciative during that pause.
Context
Wordsworth used this phrase as the title of a short poem written in 1803, inspired by an inscription he encountered during his travels in Scotland. The setting was a place of natural beauty and calm, and the phrase captured both the physical act of stopping to rest and a deeper emotional response to the landscape. Wordsworth was deeply concerned with the relationship between human experience and the natural world, and this brief title distills that concern into its most essential form.
About the author
William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet born in 1770 who, together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature. He spent much of his life in the Lake District of England, and the natural world was a constant source of inspiration and meaning in his poetry. He served as Poet Laureate of Great Britain from 1843 until his death in 1850. His work is celebrated for its close attention to nature, its focus on everyday human experience, and its belief in the restorative power of the natural landscape.
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