Henry David Thoreau Quotes

In my solitude, many miles from men and houses, I am in a childishly happy and carefree state of mind, which you are incapable of understanding unless someone explains it to you.

I like being near the top of a mountain. One can't get lost here.

I grew up in New Mexico, and the older I get, I have less need for contemporary culture and big cities and all the stuff we are bombarded with. I am happier at my ranch in the middle of nowhere watching a bug carry leaves across the grass, listening to silence, riding my horse, and being in open space.

I remember how much fun it was to be a child in the kibbutz.

Come into the mountains, dear friend Leave society and take no one with you But your true self Get close to nature Your everyday games will be insignificant Notice the clouds spontaneously forming patterns And try to do that with your life.

I miss the woods. Sometimes I go on weekend trips and just wander the woods, barefoot and reminiscing, and I put my contact lenses in. Is that weird?

We gather at night to celebrate being human. Sometimes we call out low to the tambourine. Fish drink the sea, but the sea does not get smaller! We eat the clouds and evening light. We are slaves tasting the royal wine.

Strolling on, it seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in spareness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life-forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.

I love to write out of doors and sleep out of doors, too. If I sleep under the open sky it becomes part of the writing experience, part of my insulation from the world.

O how blessed it would be never to marry, or grow old; but to spend one's life innocently and indifferently among the trees and rivers which alone can keep one cool and childlike in the midst of the troubles of the world!

I hold no preference among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous.

Wild honey smells of freedom The dust - of sunlight The mouth of a young girl, like a violet But gold - smells of nothing.

may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living

I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don't fence me in. Let me ride through the wide open country that I love Don't fence me in Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees Send me off forever but I ask you please Don't fence me in

Be an empty page, untouched by words.

If we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse.

A study of animal communities has this advantage: they are merely what they are, for anyone to see who will and can look clearly; they cannot complicate the picture by worded idealisms, by saying one thing and being another; here the struggle is unmasked and the beauty is unmasked.

Beginnings start without shade,Thinner than minnows.The live grass whirls with the sun,Feet run over the simple stones,There's time enough.Behold, in the lout's eye, love.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me

The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show. A companion with whom I was sailing one very windy but bright moonlight night, when the stars were few and faint, thought that a man could get along with them,-though he was considerably reduced in his circumstances,-that they were a kind of bread and cheese that never failed.

From there we came outside and saw the stars