Henry David Thoreau Quotations: TIME
The more we know about the ancients, the more we find that they were like the moderns.—Journal, 2 September 1851
The night is oracular. What have been the intimations of the night? I ask. How have you passed the night? Good-night!—Journal, 27 October 1851
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 past is the canvass on which our idea is painted,—the dim prospectus of our future field. We are dreaming of what we are to do.—"The Service"
The present is the instant work and near process of living, and will be found in the last analysis to be nothing more nor less than digestion. Sometimes, it is true, it is indigestion.—Journal, after 21 October 1842
The prospect of the young is forward and unbounded, mingling the future with the present. In the declining day the thoughts make haste to rest in darkness, and hardly look forward to the ensuing morning. The thoughts of the old prepare for night and slumber. The same hopes and prospects are not for him who stands upon the rosy mountain-tops of life, and him who expects the setting of his earthly day.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The Scarlet Oak asks a clear sky and the brightness of late October days. These bring out its colors.—"Autumnal Tints"
The sun rarely shines in history, what with the dust and confusion; and when we meet with any cheering fact which implies the presence of this luminary, we excerpt and modernize it.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
The true student will cleave ever to the good, recognizing no Past, no Present; but wherever he emerges from the bosom of time, his course is not with the sun,—eastward or westward,—but ever towards the seashore.—Journal, 15 February 1838
The very willow-rows lopped every three years for fuel or powder,—and every sizable pine and oak, or other forest tree, cut down within the memory of man! As if individual speculators were to be allowed to export the clouds out of the sky, or the stars out of the firmament, one by one. We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.—The Maine Woods
