Nature Quotations from Henry David Thoreau
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
from Walking
Come let us roam the breezy pastures
Where the freest zephyrs blow
Batten on the oak tree's rustle,
And the pleasant insect bustle,
Dripping with the streamlet's flow.
--from "The Breeze's Invitation"
For many years I was the self-appointed inspector of
snowstorms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully.
--from Walden
Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine
lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the
light,--to see its perfect success.
--from The Maine Woods
Each experience reduces itself to a mood in the mind.
--from Journal, June 6, 1857
Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.
--from Walden
I long for wildness, a nature which I cannot put my foot
through...
--from Journal, June 22, 1853
We need the tonic of wildness...We can never have enough of
nature.
--from Walden
The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous
point from which to contemplate the world....There is naked
Nature, inhumanly sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling at
the cliffy shore where gulls wheel amid the spray.
--from Cape Cod
Every day a new picture is painted and framed, held up for
half an hour, in such lights as the Great Artist chooses, and
then withdrawn, and the curtain falls.
--from Journal, January 7, 1852
In dreams the links of life are united: we forget that our
friends are dead; we know them as of old.
--from Journal, May 23, 1853
But the humblest fungus betrays a life akin to our own. It is a successful poem in its kind. --from Journal, October 10, 1858
Each phase of nature, while not invisible, is yet not too
distinct and obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for
it, but not demanding our attention. It is like a silent but
sympathizing companion in whose company we retain most of the
advantages of solitude...
--from Journal, November 8, 1858
...it occurred to me that I had heard the dream of the toad.
--from Journal, October 26, 1853
All that was ripest and fairest in the wildness and the wild
man is preserved and transmitted to us in the strain of the wood
thrush.
--from Journal, June 22, 1853
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
--from Journal, April 3, 1852
Every landscape which is dreary enough a certain beauty to my
eyes, and in this instance its permanent qualities were enhanced
by the weather.
--from Cape Cod
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
--from Walden
The voice of nature is always encouraging.
--from Journal, March 18, 1858
The wind that blows
Is all that any body knows.
--from "Men Say They Know Many Things"
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will
meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
--from Walden
The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse
as brightly as from the rich man's abode.
--from Walden
...true art is but the expression of our love of nature.
--from Journal, October 9, 1857
Silence is of various depths and fertility, like soil.
--from Journal, January 21, 1853
Oh, could I catch the sounds remote
Could I but tell to human ear--
The strains which on the breezes float
And sing the requiem of the dying year.
--from "I Mark the Summer's Swift Decline"
Do not despair of life. Think of the fox, prowling in a winter night to satisfy his hunger. His race survives; I do not believe any of them ever committed suicide.