Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Change
Music soothes the din of philosophy and lightens incessantly over the heads of sages.—Journal, 23 June 1840
Nature has found her hoarse summer voice again, like the lowing of a cow let out to the pasture. It is Nature's rutting season.—Journal, 19 May 1856
Nature works by contraries. That which in summer was most fluid and unresting is now most solid and motionless.—Journal, 11 February 1859
October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight.—"Autumnal Tints"
Once I was part and parcel of Nature—now I am observant of her.—Journal, 2 April 1852
Painted by the frosts, some a uniform clear bright yellow, or red, or crimson, as if their spheres had regularly revolved, and enjoyed the influence of the sun on all sides alike,—some with the faintest pink blush imaginable,—some brindled with deep red streaks like a cow, or with hundreds of fine blood-red rays running regularly from the stem-dimple to the blossom end, like meridional lines, on a straw-colored ground,—some touched with a greenish rust, like a fine lichen, here and there, with crimson blotches or eyes more or less confluent and fiery when wet,—and others gnarly, and freckled or peppered all over on the stem side with fine crimson spots on a white ground, as if accidentally sprinkled from the brush of Him who paints the autumn leaves.—"Wild Apples"
Perhaps an instinct survives through the intensest actual love, which prevents entire abandonment and devotion, and makes the most ardent lover a little reserved. It is the anticipation of change.—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 23 September 1852
Revolutions are never sudden. Not one man, nor many men, in a few years or generations, suffice to regulate events and dispose mankind for the revolutionary movement. The hero is but the crowning stone of the pyramid,—the keystone of the arch.—Journal, 27 December 1837
So is all change for the better, like birth and death which convulse the body.—"Resistance to Civil Government"
So vivacious is redness. The very rails reflect a rosy light at this hour and season. You see a redder tree than exists.—"Autumnal Tints"
