Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Music
The occupied ear thinks that beyond the cricket no sound can be heard, but there is an immortal melody that may be heard morning, noon, and night, by ears that can attend, and from time to time this man or that hears it, having ears that were made for music.—Journal, 21 July 1851
The poet cherishes his chagrins and sets his sighs to music.—Journal, 1 June 1853
The silence rings—it is musical & thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible—I hear the unspeakable.—Journal, 21 January 1853
Their reflections fell on the eye like a clash of cymbals on the ear.—A Yankee in Canada
These earthly sounds should only die away for a season, as the strains of the harp rise and swell. Death is that expressive pause in the music of the blast.—Journal, 29 December 1841
Unpremeditated music is the true gauge which measures the current of our thoughts—the very undertow of our life's stream.—Journal, 18 August 1841
Was awakened in the night to a strain of music dying away,—passing travellers singing. My being was so expanded and infinitely and divinely related for a brief season that I saw how unexhausted, how almost wholly unimproved, was man’s capacity for a divine life. When I remembered what a narrow and finite life I should anon awake to!—Journal, 19 April 1856
We seem to hear the music of a thought, and care not if the understanding be not gratified.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
What is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love?—Journal, 30 April 1851
When I hear music I fear no danger, I am invulnerable, I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times and to the latest.—Journal, 13 January 1857
