Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Nature
We, too, are out, obeying the same law with all nature. Not less important are the observers of the birds than the birds themselves.—Journal, 20 March 1858
What a fine communication from age to age, of the fairest and noblest thoughts, the aspirations of ancient men, even such as were never communicated by speech, is music! It is the flower of language, thought colored and curved, fluent and flexible, its crystal fountain tinged with the sun’s rays, and its purling ripples reflecting the grass and the clouds.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.—Walden
What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life passing within her?—Journal, 2 November 1853
When I find a new and rare plant in Concord I seem to think it has but just sprung up here—that it is, and not I am, the newcomer—while it has grown here for ages before I was born.—Journal, 2 September 1856
When the frogs dream, and the grass waves, and the buttercups toss their heads, and the heat disposes to bathe in the ponds and streams, then is summer begun.—Journal, 8 June 1850
Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his words as often as he used them,—transplanted them to his page with earth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and fresh and natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach of spring, though they lay half smothered between two musty leaves in a library,—aye, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding Nature.—Cape Cod
Who could believe in prophecies of Daniel or of Miller that the world would end this summer while one Milk-weed with faith matured its seeds!—Journal, 24 September 1851
Words should pass between friends as the lightning passes from cloud to cloud.—Journal, 20 March 1842
Would 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 1840
