Whoever has been down to the end of Long Wharf, and walked through Quincy Market, has seen Boston.
—Cape CodÂWhoever has discerned truth, has received his commission from a higher source then the chiefest justice in the world, who can discern only law.
—"Slavery in Massachusetts"Why is it that in the lives of men we hear more of the dark wood than the sunny pastures?
—Journal, 29 October 1857Why should not we, who have renounced the king’s authority, have our national preserves, where no villages need be destroyed, in which the bear and panther, and some even of the hunter race, may still exist, and not be “civilized off the face of the earth,”—our forests, not to hold the king’s game merely, but to hold and preserve the king himself also, the lord of creation,—not for idle sport or food, but for inspiration and our own true re-creation?
—The Maine WoodsWhy should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.
—WaldenWhy will not men oftener advertise me of musical thoughts? The singer is in the attitude of one inviting the muse,—aspiring.
—Journal, 19 May 1856Will you live? or will you be embalmed? Will you live, though it be astride of a sunbeam; or will you repose safely in the catacombs for a thousand years?
—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 3 April 1850With all your science can you tell how it is and whence it is that light comes into the soul?
—Journal, 16 July 1851With many men their fine manners are a lie all over, a skim-coat or finish of falsehood. They are not brave enough to do without this sort of armor, which they wear night and day.
—Journal, 29 March 1858With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent.
—WaldenWith what infinite and unwearied expectation and proclamations the cocks usher in every dawn as if there had never been one before.
—Journal, 16 March 1852Words should pass between friends as the lightning passes from cloud to cloud.
—Journal, 20 March 1842Work your vein till it is exhausted, or conducts you to a broader one.
—Thoreau to Daniel Ricketson, 18 February 1851Would it not be a luxury to stand up to one’s chin in some retired swamp for a whole summer’s day, scenting the sweet-fern and bilberry blows, and lulled by the minstrelsy of gnats and mosquitoes?
—Journal, 14 June 1840Would it not be well to describe some of those rough all-day walks across lots?—as that of the 15th, picking our way over quaking meadows and swamps and occasionally slipping into the muddy batter midleg deep; jumping or fording ditches and brooks; forcing our way through dense blueberry swamps, where there is water beneath and bushes above . . . now through a dense pine wood, descending into a rank, dry swamp, where the cinnamon fern rises above your head, with isles of poison-dogwood . . .
—Journal, 27 August 1854Write while the heat is in you. When the farmer burns a hole in his yoke, he carries the hot iron quickly from the fire to the wood, for every moment it is less effectual to penetrate it. It must be used instantly, or it is useless. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.
—Journal, 10 February 1852Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human art contrived, or else of a Dismal Swamp, I should certainly decide for the swamp.
—"Walking"Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the Suns.