Is not the attitude of expectation somewhat divine?—a sort of home-made divineness?
—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 28 May 1850It is a common saying among country people that if you eat much fried hasty pudding it will make your hair curl. My experience, which was considerable, did not confirm this assertion.
—Journal, 20 November 1850It is folly to attempt to educate children within a city. The first step must be to remove them out of it.
—Journal, 25 July 1851It is a labor to task the faculties of a man—such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare and tret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal knowledge.
—WaldenIt is a momentous fact that a man may be good, or he may be bad; his life may be true, or it may be false; it may be either a shame or a glory to him. The good man builds himself up; the bad man destroys himself. But whatever we do we must do confidently (if we are timid, let us, then, act timidly), not expecting more light, but having light enough. If we confidently expect more, then let us wait for it.
—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 2 May 1848It is a rare qualification to be able to state a fact simply and adequately, to digest some experience cleanly, to say “yes” and “no” with authority, to make a square edge, to conceive and suffer the truth to pass through us living and intact, even as a waterfowl an eel, as it flies over the meadows, thus stocking new waters.
—Journal, 1 November 1851It is a regular spring rain, such as I remember walking in,—windy but warm.
—Journal, 12 March 1859It 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 1850It is a thorough process, this war with the wilderness—breaking nature, taming the soil, feeding it on oats. The civilized man regards the pine tree as his enemy. He will fell it and let in the light, grub it up and raise wheat or rye there. It is no better than a fungus to him.
—Journal, 2 February 1852It is astonishing how far a merely well-dressed and good-looking man may go without being challenged by any sentinel.
—Journal, 3 January 1856It is chiefly the spring birds that I hear at this hour, and in each dawn the spring is thus revived.
—Journal, 4 July 1852It is enough if I have pleased myself with writing—I am then sure of an audience.
—Journal, 24 March 1842It is far more independent to travel on foot. You have to sacrifice so much to the horse. You cannot choose the most agreeable places in which to spend the noon, commanding the finest views, because commonly there is no water there, or you cannot get there with your horse.
—Journal, 4 July 1858It is fatal to the writer to be too much possessed by his thought. Things must lie a little remote to be described.
—Journal, 11 November 1851It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually.
—"Civil Disobedience"It is generally conceded that a man does not look the worse for a somewhat dilapidated hat.
—Journal, 25 December 1859It is glorious to consider how independent man is of all enervating luxuries; and the poorer he is in respect to them, the richer he is.
—Journal, 22 November 1860