Henry David Thoreau Quotes

At the end [when I speak about] magma under us everywhere, how it's monumentally indifferent to scurrying roaches, recoiled reptiles, and vapid humans alike. You see, you would never hear anything like that in a National Geographic or a PBS movie. This is clearly a transgression when it comes to being politically correct with your commentary.

There are more active volcanoes beneath the sea than on land by two orders of magnitude.

Connection between life and radioactive nuclei is straightforward. No life without tectonic activity, without volcanic activity. And we know very well that geothermal energy is mostly produced by decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium.

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.

Cotton was a force of nature. There's a poetry to it, hoeing and growing cotton.

Wildness It is perennially within us, dormant as a hard-shelled seed, awaiting the fire or flood that awakes it again.

A volcano may be considered as a cannon of immense size.

Under the skin, intense fires burn.

We may confidently come to the conclusion, that the forces which slowly and by little starts uplift continents, and that those which at successive periods pour forth volcanic matter from open orifices, are identical.

Volcanic action is essentially paroxysmal; yet Mr. Lyell will admit no greater paroxysms than we ourselves have witnessed-no periods of feverish spasmodic energy, during which the very framework of nature has been convulsed and torn asunder. The utmost movements that he allows are a slight quivering of her muscular integuments.

E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

I went out to the hazelwood because a fire was in my head.

Xenophanes states that the fire in Lipara once failed for sixteen years, but returned in the seventeenth year. They say that the lava-stream in Etna is neither flaming nor continuous, but returns only after an interval of many years.

Rain! whose soft architectural hands have power to cut stones, and chisel to shapes of grandeur the very mountains.

Not one drop of blood is left inside my veins that does not throb: I recognize signs of the ancient flame.

Give me the old familiar walk, postoffice and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten. We'll go nutting once more. We'll pluck the nut of the world, and crack it in the winter evenings. Theaters and all other sightseeing are puppet-shows in comparison. I will take another walk to the Cliff, another row on the river, another skate on the meadow, be out in the first snow, and associate with the winter birds. Here I am at home. In the bare and bleached crust of the earth I recognize my friend.

Geology holds the keys of one of the kingdoms of nature; and it cannot be said that a science which extends our Knowledge, and by consequence our Power, over a third part of nature, holds a low place among intellectual employments.

Joy is everywhere; it is in the earth's green covering of grass: in the blue serenity of the sky: in the reckless exuberance of spring: in the severe abstinence of grey winter: in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame: in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright: in living, in the exercise of all our powers: in the acquisition of knowledge. . . Joy is there everywhere.

The United States is like a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lit under it, there's no limit to the power it can generate.

You cannot make the fire so low but it will get out.

At certain times, men regard poetry merely as a bright flame, but to women it was, and always will be, a warm fire.

Into this wild abyss, The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave.