Henry David Thoreau Quotations: OBSERVATIONS
From the right point of view, every storm and every drop in it is a rainbow.—Journal, 11 December 1855
Give me the old familiar walk, post-office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten. We'll go nutting once more. We'll pluck the nut of the world, and crack it in the winter evenings. Theaters and all other sightseeing are puppet-shows in comparison. I will take another walk to the Cliff, another row on the river, another skate on the meadow, be out in the first snow, and associate with the winter birds. Here I am at home. In the bare and bleached crust of the earth I recognize my friend.—Journal, 1 November 1858
Go and measure to what length the silvery willows catkins have crept out beyond their scales, if you would know what time o' the year it is by Nature's clock.—Journal, 2 March 1859
Go where we will, we discover infinite change in particulars only, not in generals.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
He will take a false step never, even in the most arduous times, for then the music will not fail to swell into greater sweetness and volume, and itself rule the movement it inspired.—Journal, 30 June 1840
Hell itself may be contained within the compass of a spark.—Journal, 19 December 1837
Here and there a pilot-boat was towing its little boat astern toward some distant foreigner who had just fired a gun, the echo of which along the shore sounded like the caving of the bank.—Cape Cod
Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps.—"Walking"
How imperceptibly the first springing takes place!—Journal, 3 March 1859
How is it that we are impelled to treat our old friends so ill when we obtain new ones?—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
