Henry David Thoreau Quotations: OBSERVATIONS
Ladies are in haste to dress as if it were cold or as if it were warm,—though it may not yet be so,—merely to display a new dress.—Journal, 25 December 1859
Left to herself, nature is always more or less civilized, and delights in a certain refinement; but where the axe has encroached upon the edge of the forest, the dead and unsightly limbs of the pine, which she had concealed with green banks of verdure, are exposed to sight.—"A Walk to Wachusett"
Looking southward, the heavens were completely overcast, the mountains capped with clouds, and the lake generally wore a dark and stormy appearance, but from its surface six or eight miles distant there was reflected upward through the misty air a bright blue tinge from the unseen sky of another latitude beyond.—The Maine Woods
Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray, i.e. we are not looking for it. So, in the largest sense, we find only the world we look for.—Journal, 2 July 1857
May I go to my slumbers as expecting to arise to a new and more perfect day.—Journal, 16 July 1851
Men wear their hats for use; women theirs for ornament.—Journal, 25 December 1859
Morning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through my apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows open, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was Homer’s requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own wrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of the world.—Walden
Most men can keep a horse or keep up a certain fashionable style of living, but few indeed can keep up great expectations.—Journal, 6 May 1858
Most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum—many for a glass of rum. Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!—Journal, 3 January 1861
Music soothes the din of philosophy and lightens incessantly over the heads of sages.—Journal, 23 June 1840
