Henry David Thoreau Quotations: SENSES
Music wafts me through the clear, sultry valleys, with only a slight gray vapor against the hills.—Journal, 8 January 1842
Nature makes no noise. The howling storm, the rustling leaf, the pattering rain are no disturbance, there is an essential and unexplored harmony in them.—Journal, 18 November 1837
Once, when Joe had called again, and we were listening for moose, we heard come faintly echoing, or creeping from far, through the moss-clad aisles, a dull, dry, rushing sound, with a solid core to it, yet as if half smothered under the grasp of the luxuriant and fungus-like forest, like the shutting of a door in some distant entry of the damp and shaggy wilderness.—The Maine Woods
One early thrush gave me a note or two as I drove along the woodland path.—Walden
One music seems to differ from another chiefly in its more perfect time, to use this word in a true sense. In the steadiness and equanimity of music lies its divinity.—Journal, 8 January 1842
Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. It is balm to the philosopher. It tempers his thoughts.—Journal, 22 May 1854
Our reflections had already acquired a historical remoteness from the scenes we had left, and we ourselves essayed to sing.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Returning, stopped at Barrett's sawmill while it rained a little. Was also attracted by the music of his saw. He was sawing a white oak log; was about to saw a very ugly and knotty white oak log into drag plank, making an angle.—Journal, 19 May 1856
Senses that take cognizance of outward things merely are of no avail. It matters not where or how far you travel? the farther commonly the worse? but how much alive you are.—Journal, 6 May 1854
So few habitually intoxicate themselves with music, so many with alcohol. I think, perchance, I may risk it, it will whet my senses so.—Journal, 16 October 1857
