At present I am subsisting on certain wild flavors which nature wafts to me, which unaccountably sustain me, and make my apparently poor life rich.
—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 20 November 1849At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only,—when fences shall be multiplied, and man traps and other engines invented to confine men to the public road; and walking over the surface of God’s earth, shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities then before the evil days come.
—"Walking"At the end of winter, there is a season in which we are daily expecting spring, and finally a day when it arrives.
—Journal, 8 March 1853Beauty 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 1855Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversBlessed are they who never read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and through her, God.
—Thoreau to Parker Pillsbury, 10 April 1861Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
—WaldenBooks can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.
—Thoreau to Benjamin B. Wiley, 26 April 1857Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers the ground, of the magnolia, and the Florida keys, and their warm sea breezes; of the fence-rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of the rice-bird; of the breaking up of winter in Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the forks of the Missouri; and owe an accession of health to these reminiscences of luxuriant nature.
—"Natural History of Massachusetts"Books, not which affords us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institutions—such call I good books.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversBravery deals not so much in resolute action, as in healthy and assured rest.
—Journal, December 1839Brown is the color for me, the color of our coats and our daily lives, the color of the poor man’s loaf. The bright tints are pies and cakes, good only for October feasts, which would make us sick if eaten every day.
—Journal, 28 March 1859But cowardice is unscientific; for there cannot be a science of ignorance. There may be a science of bravery, for that advances; but a retreat is rarely well conducted; if it is, then is it an orderly advance in the face of circumstances.
—"Natural History of Massachusetts"