Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Observation
A fact stated barely is dry. It must be the vehicle of some humanity in order to interest us . . . A man has not seen a thing who has not felt it.—Journal, 23 February 1860
A familiar name cannot make a man less strange to me.—Journal, 21 May 1851
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.—Walden
A man may walk abroad and no more see the sky than if he walked under a shed.—Journal, 21 August 1851
A queen might be proud to walk where these gallant trees have spread their bright cloaks in the mud. I see wagons roll over them as a shadow or reflection, and the drivers heed them just as little as they did their own shadows before.—"Autumnal Tints"
A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed.—Journal, 20 August 1851
All distant landscapes seen from hill tops are veritable pictures which will be found to have no actual existence to him who travels to them.—Journal, 1 May 1851
As it is important to consider Nature from the point of view of science remembering nomenclature and system of men, and so, if possible, go a step further in that direction, so it is equally important often to ignore or forget all that men presume they know, and take an original and unprejudiced view of Nature, letting her make what impression she will on you, as the first men, and all children and natural men still do.—Journal, 28 February 1860
As you see so at length will you say.—Journal, 1 November 1851
But most men do not know what a house is, and the mass are actually poor all their days because they think they must have such an one as their neighbor's.—Journal, 23 August 1845
