"In the woods, we return to reason and faith."When we go into nature, we are restored to our essentials. We can forget about all about the things that bother us or worry us, and we can return to a better state of ourselves. Our concern with our own selves fades away, and our ego is no longer important.
"I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God."In nature, my self seems to disappear; I simply take in everything I see around me; God can move through me without resistance and I become a part of God . Again, we have this idea that the ego seems to dissolve and the person, in nature, becomes only observation and appreciation. There is no more self, there is only nature and the divine,...
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and the person merges with them.
"But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars."If a person wants to really embrace solitude, he or she must go outside. Even alone in one's home, one isn't really alone because one is surrounded by things made by other people and things that remind one of others. If one is writing alone, one still writes for an audience. If one is reading alone, one reads the words of another person. The only way to really be alone, and to reap the benefits of solitude, a person must go outside.
"Life only avails, not the having lived." The word "avail" means "to use to one's advantage." So this saying could be paraphrased as: Life itself is what's important, not the fact that you lived it. You could say that this is an argument against despair that leads to suicide.
"Power ceases in the instant of repose." The word "repose" means "to rest" or "to sleep." So a paraphrase might be: "No one is powerful when asleep."
"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think." This one shouldn't need any paraphrasing for understanding, but you might restate it as: "It doesn't matter what people think, I'll do what I have to do."
"Travelling is a fool's paradise." Paraphrase: You have to be crazy to like to travel!