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The Thoreau Institute
at Walden Woods Library
Thoreau's
Life & Writings
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Henry D. Thoreau Quotation Pages
On Solitude
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You
think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my
solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis,
and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature,
fitted for a higher society. [Journal, 8 February 1857]
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It would
be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as
where I live. [Walden]
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I thrive
best on solitude. If I have had a companion only one day in a week,
unless it were one or two I could name, I find that the value of the
week to me has been seriously affected. It dissipates my days, and
often it takes me another week to get over it. [Journal, 28
December 1856]
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By my
intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest
in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me
to solitude. [Journal, 26 July 1851]
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Men
frequently say to me, "I should think you would feel lonesome down
there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and
nights especially." I am tempted to reply to such,—This whole earth
which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you,
dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth
of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I
feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put
seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of
space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him
solitary? I have found that no exertion of legs can bring two minds
much nearer to one another. [Walden]
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Ah! I
need solitude. I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the
forms of the mountains in the horizon
— to behold and commune with something grander than man. Their mere
distance and unprofanedness is an infinite encouragement. it is with
infinite yearning and aspiration that I seek solitude, more and more
resolved and strong; but with a certain weakness that I seek society
ever. [Journal, 14 August 1854]
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I have
an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I
don't get enough for this year, I shall cry all the next. [Thoreau
to Daniel Ricketson, 9 September 1857]
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I am no
more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than
Walden Pond itself. What company has that lonely lake, I pray? And
yet it has not the blue devils, but the blue angels in it, in the
azure tint of its waters. The sun is alone, except in thick weather,
when there sometimes appear to be two, but one is a mock sun. God is
alone,—but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great
deal of company; he is legion. I am no more lonely than a single
mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or a sorrel, or a
horse-fly, or a humble-bee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook,
or a weathercock, or the northstar, or the south wind, or an April
shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house. [Walden]
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I have
lately got back to that glorious society called Solitude. [Thoreau
to H.G.O. Blake, 1 January 1859]
A
Note on the Text:
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Source:
Unless otherwise noted, quotations are from The Writings of Henry
David Thoreau (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906)
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