Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I want to live in a world capital or the howling wilderness.

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth.

But I think there's something wonderful and extraordinary about climbing on your own and just that kind of relationship to the environment. I'm very addicted to the mountains. You know, so, I do like that solitude.

I now walk into the wild.

So I've been pushed farther and farther out into the mountains, but at the same time realizing that that experience is really nice and I'm glad I'm getting pushed out there farther.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

No phone. No pool. No pets. No cigarettes. Ultimate freedom... No longer to be poisoned by civilization, he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become Lost in the Wild.

I just love being in the middle of nowhere.

My folks have a cottage north of Kingston, which is literally in the middle of nowhere, and I can be there very happily for like a week.

When every inch of the world is known, sleep may be the only wilderness that we have left.

Barring love I'll take my life in large doses alone--rivers, forests, fish, grouse, mountains. Dogs.

I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known.

Here is Menard's own intimate forest: 'Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade...I live in great density...Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage...In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities.

For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. There is nothing here to cabin or thwart your free desires. Here all impudences of the brawling world reach you no more.

Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleance me in the great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.

The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom.

Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and numbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy.

I've been able to carve out spaces for myself. At Sundance, I'm in the mountains - my property is private. I get on a horse and ride for three, four hours. Sometimes five. I get lost. But when I'm in, I'm in.

I really feel that my body craves to be in the mountains or by the ocean or in the countryside.

My recollection of a hundred lovely lakes has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful.

My favourite country is Finland because once you get to a certain point, you can drive for hours without seeing a single person. I love peace and quiet - something I don't get very often.

The land created me. I'm wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I'm more at home in the vacant lots.

When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me.

I have gone to the forest.

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