in Thoreau’s Journal:

The art of life—of a poets life is—not having anything to do, to do something.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I approach a great nature with infinite expectation and uncertainty, not knowing what I may meet. It lies as broad and unexplored before me as a scraggy hillside or pasture. I may hear a fox bark, or a partridge drum, or some bird new to these localities may fly up. It lies out there as old, and yet as new. The aspect of the woods varies every day, what with their growth and the changes of the seasons and the influence of the elements, so that the eye of the forester never twice rests upon the same prospect.

Much more does a character show newly and variedly, if directly seen.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I stand under Lee’s Cliff. There is a certain summeriness in the air now, especially under a warm cliff like this, where you smell the very dry leaves, and hear the pine warbler and the hum of a few insects, —small gnats, etc.,—and see considerable growth and greenness. Though it is still windy, there is, nevertheless, a certain serenity and long-lifeness in the air, as if it were a habitable place and not merely to be hurried through.

The noon of the year is approaching. Nature seems meditating a siesta. The hurry of the duck migration is, methinks, over. But the woods generally, and at a distance, show no growth yet. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How pleasant in spring a still overcast warm day like this when the water is smooth! 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

When the wind is still cool elsewhere, I glance up some warm southern slope, sunny and still, where the thinly scattered blades of green grass, lately sprung, already perchance begin to wave, and I am suddenly advertised that a new season has arrived.

This is the beginning of that season which, methinks, culminates with the buttercup and wild pink and Viola pedata.  It begins when the first toad is heard.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land.

There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I find but one red-maple fairly in blossom on a few twigs over the water today. I think therefore the 22nd will do for the very earliest.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

When the outline & texture of white pine is thus seen against the water or the sky it is an affecting sight.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

As we stand by the Mt on the Battleground––I see a white pine dimly in the horizon just north of Lee’s Hill––at 5 1/2 Pm, its upright stem & straight horizontal feathered branches––while at the same time I hear a robin sing.  Each enhances the other. That tree seems the emblem of my life––it stands for the west––the wild.

The sight of it is grateful to me as to a bird whose perch it is to be at the end of a weary flight. I am not sure whether the music I hear is most in the robins’ song or in its boughs. The pine tree that stands on the verge of the clearing––whose boughs point westward. Which the villager does not permit to grow on the common or by the road side.–– In whose boughs the crow and the hawk have their nests.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The universe will not wait to be explained.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The calm bright hour after the sun came out was very pleasant.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

For the first time I perceive this spring that the year is a circle— I see distinctly the spring arc thus far. It is drawn with a firm line…

Why should just these sights & sounds accompany our life? Why should I hear the chattering of blackbirds—why smell the skunk each year? I would fain explore the mysterious relation between myself & these things. I would at least know what these things unavoidably are—make a chart of our life & when—know why just this circle of creatures completes the world. Can I not by expectation affect the revolutions of nature—make a day to bring forth something new?

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The scent of the earliest spring flowers! I smelt the willow catkins today. Tender––& innocent––after this rude winter––yet slightly sickening–– –– Yet full of vernal promise. The odor–– How unlike any thing that winter affords––or nature has afforded this 6 months! A mild sweet vernal scent–– Not highly spiced & intoxicating as some erelong––but attractive to bees–– That early yellow smell.

The odor of spring––of life developing amid buds––of the earth’s epithalamium–– The first flowers are not the highest scented––as catkins––as the first birds are not the finest singers––as the black-birds & song sparrows &c. The beginnings of the year are humble. But though this fragrance is not rich––it contains & prophecies all others in it.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The water on the meadows is now quite high––on account of the melting snow & the rain….Would it not be worth the while to describe the different states of our meadows which cover so large a portion of the town. It is not as if we had a few acres only of water surface––From every side the milk-man rides over long causeways into the village —& carries the vision of much meadow’s surface with him into his dreams.––  They answer to moods of the Concord mind.–– There might be a chapter the Sudbury meadows––the humors of the town–– 

…I think our overflowing river––far handsomer & more abounding in soft and beautiful contrasts––than a merely broad river would be–– A succession of bays it is––a chain of lakes––an endlessly scalloped shore–– –– rounding wood & field––cultivated field & wood & pasture and house are brought into ever new & unexpected positions & relations to the water. There is just stream enough for a flow of thought––that is all. –– Many a foreigner who has come to this town has worked for years on its banks without discovering which way the river runs.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I see that the grass, which, unless in the most favored spots, did not show any evidence of spring to the casual glance before the snow, will look unexpectedly green as soon as it has gone.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

At this season of the year, we are continually expecting warmer weather than we have. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A fair day, but a cool wind still, from the snow-covered country in the northwest. It is, however pleasant to sit in the sun in sheltered places.

The small croaking frogs are now generally heard in all those stagnant ponds or pools in woods floored with leaves, which are mainly dried up in the summer. At first, perhaps, you hear but one or two dry croaks, but, if you sit patiently, you may hear quite a concert of them at last,— er-wah er-wah er-wah, with a nasal twang and twist,— and see them dimpling the surface there and there by their movements. But if you approach the pond-side, they suddenly cease. We hear them at J. P. Brownes Pond, which is edged with ice still on the north. The water must be smooth and the weather pretty warm.

There is still some icy snow in hollows under the north sides of woods.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Saw the first blossoms (bright-yellow stamens or pistils) on the willow catkins to-day. The speckled alders and the maples are earlier then. The yellow blossom appears first on one side of the ament and is the most of bright and sunny color the spring has shown, the most decidedly flower-like that I have seen. It flowers, then, I should say, without regard to the skunk-cabbage, q. v. First the speckled alder, then the maple without keys, then this earliest, perhaps swamp, willow with its bright-yellow blossoms on one side of the ament.

It is fit that this almost earliest spring flower should be yellow, the color of the sun.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A pure brook is a very beautiful object to study minutely.  It will bear the closest inspection, even to the fine air-bubbles, like minute globules of quicksilver, that lie on its bottom.

The minute particles or spangles of golden mica in these sands, when the sun shines on them, remind one of the golden sands we read of. Everything is washed clean and bright, and the water is the best glass through which to see it….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I don’t know but we should make life all too tame if we had our own way, and should miss these impulses in a happier time.

How much virtue there is in simply seeing! We may almost say that the hero has striven in vain for his preeminency, if the student oversees him. The woman who sits in the house and sees is a match for a stirring captain. Those still, piercing eyes, as faithfully exercised on their talent, will keep her even with Alexander or Shakespeare. They may go to Asia with parade, or to fairyland, but not beyond her ray. 

We are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The hands only serve the eyes. The farthest blue streak in the horizon I can see, I may reach before many sunsets. What I saw alters not; in my night, when I wander, it is still steadfast as the star which the sailor steers by.

Whoever has had one thought quite lonely, and could contentedly digest that in solitude; knowing that none could accept it, may rise to the height of humanity, and overlook all living men as from a pinnacle.