Henry David Thoreau Quotations: TIME
Is not the midnight like central Africa to most?—Journal, 1 February 1852
It is a strange age of the world this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to our doors and utter their complaints at our elbows.—Journal, 17 November 1850
It would be no reproach to a philosopher, that he knew the future better than the past, or even than the present. It is better worth knowing.—"Thomas Carlyle and His Works"
Many men walk by day, few walk by night. It is a very different season.—Journal, 1 July 1850
May I go to my slumbers as expecting to arise to a new and more perfect day.—Journal, 16 July 1851
Men frequently say to me, "I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially." I am tempted to reply to such,—This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.—Walden
Morning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through my apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows open, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was Homer’s requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own wrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of the world.—Walden
Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.—Walden
Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight.—"Autumnal Tints"
