In the last stage of civilization, Poetry, Religion and Philosophy will be one.
—Journal, 17 December 1837In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.
—WaldenIn the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since.
—WaldenIn the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat–Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions.
—WaldenIn the night the eyes are partly closed or retire into the head. Other senses take the lead. The walker is guided as well by the sense of smell. Every plant and field and forest emits its odor now, swamp-pink in the meadow and tansy in the road; and there is the peculiar dry scent of corn which has begun to show its tassels.
—Cape CodIn the summer we lay up a stock of experiences for the winter, as the squirrel of nuts?something for conversation in winter evenings.
—Journal, 4 September 1851In this bank, above the clay, I counted in the summer, two hundred holes of the Bank Swallow within a space six rods long, and there were at least one thousand old birds within three times that distance, twittering over the surf.
—Cape CodIncessant labor with my hands, at first, for I had my house to finish and my beans to hoe at the same time, made more study impossible.
—WaldenIndividuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them.
—WaldenInstead of the white lily, which requires mud, or the common sweet flag, the blue flag (Iris versicolor) grows thinly in the pure water, rising from the stony bottom all around the shore, where it is visited by hummingbirds in June . . .
—WaldenIs it a freedom to be slaves or a freedom to be free, of which we boast?
—Journal, 15 February 1851Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong?
—"A Plea for Captain John Brown"Is Nature so easily tamed? Is she not as primitive and vigorous here as anywhere?
—Journal, 30 August 1856Is not January alone pure winter? December belongs to the fall—is a wintery November—February to the spring—it is a snowy March.
—Journal, 9 February 1854Is not January the hardest month to get through? When you have weathered that you get into the gulf-stream of winter nearer the shores of Spring.
—Journal, 2 February 1854