Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Senses
Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes indifferent all times and places. The place where that may occur is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exception that we see and hear.—Journal, 11 December 1855
Each more melodious note I hear
Brings this reproach to me,
That I alone afford the ear,
Who would the music be.—"The Service"
Even as the birds sing tumultuously and glance by with fresh and brilliant plumage, so now is Nature's grandest voice heard, and her sharpest flashes seen.—Journal, 19 May 1856
I am soothed by the rain-drops on the door-sill; every globule that pitches thus confidently from the eaves to the ground is my life insurance.—Journal, 14 November 1839
I cannot see the bottom of the sky, because I cannot see to the bottom of myself. It is the symbol of my own infinity.—Journal, 23 June 1840
I look out at my eyes, I come to my window, and feel and breathe the fresh air. It is a fact equally glorious with the most inward experience.—Journal, 23 August 1852
I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails. In her midst I can be glad with an entire gladness. If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself, I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this.—Journal, 3 January 1853
I must walk with more free senses.—Journal, 13 September 1852
I perceive in the common train of my thoughts a natural and uninterrupted sequence, each implying the next, or, if interruption occurs, it is occasioned by a new object being presented to my senses.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
