Henry David Thoreau Quotations: SEASONS
A book should be so true as to be intimate and familiar to all men as the sun to their faces. Such a word as is occasionally uttered to a companion in the woods in summer, and both are silent.—Journal, 4 September 1841
A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.—"A Winter Walk"
A phoebe soon built in my shed, and a robin for protection in a pine which grew against the house. In June the partridge, which is so shy a bird, led her brood past my windows, from the woods in the rear to the front of my house, clucking and calling to them like a hen, and in all her behavior proving herself the hen of the woods.—Walden
Almost the very sands confess the ripening influence of the August sun, and methinks, together with the slender grasses waving over them, reflect a purple tinge.—"Autumnal Tints"
Already, by the first of September, I had seen two or three small maples turned scarlet across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three aspens diverged, at the point of a promontory, next the water. Ah, many a tale their color told!—Walden
And so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one rambles into higher and higher grass.—Walden
As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.—Walden
At the end of winter, there is a season in which we are daily expecting spring, and finally a day when it arrives.—Journal, 8 March 1853
Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers the ground, of the magnolia, and the Florida keys, and their warm sea breezes; of the fence-rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of the rice-bird; of the breaking up of winter in Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the forks of the Missouri; and owe an accession of health to these reminiscences of luxuriant nature.—"Natural History of Massachusetts"
Brown is the color for me, the color of our coats and our daily lives, the color of the poor man’s loaf. The bright tints are pies and cakes, good only for October feasts, which would make us sick if eaten every day.—Journal, 28 March 1859
