Henry David Thoreau Quotations: OBSERVATIONS
Wealth, no less than knowledge, is power.—Journal, 25 January 1841
What a faculty must that be which can paint the most barren landscape and humblest life in glorious colors!—Journal, 21 August 1851
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 are the natural features which make a township handsome? A river, with its waterfalls and meadows, a lake, a hill, a cliff or individual rocks, a forest, and ancient trees standing singly. Such things are beautiful; they have a high use which dollars and cents never represent. If the inhabitants of a town were wise, they would seek to preserve these things, though at a considerable expense; for such things educate far more than any hired teachers or preachers, or any at present recognized system of school education.—Journal, 3 January 1861
What I see is mine.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
What is hope, what is expectation, but a seed-time whose harvest cannot fail, an irresistible expedition of the mind, at length to be victorious?—Journal, 20 February 1857
What is the great attraction in cities? It is universally admitted that human beings invariably degenerate there and do not propagate their kind. Yet the prevailing tendency is to the city life, whether we move to Boston or stay in Concord.—Journal, 1845-1846
What is this heaven which they expect, if it is no better than they expect? Are they prepared for a better than they can now imagine?—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversÂ
What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.—Walden
When I go a-visiting I find that I go off the fashionable street—not being inclined to change my dress—to where man meets man and not polished shoe meets shoe.—Journal, 11 June 1855
