in Thoreau’s Journal:

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I am not aware of growth of any plant yet, unless it be the peeping out of the willow catkins. They have crept out further from under the scales, and looking closely I detect a little redness along the twigs even now.

You are always surprised by the sight of the first spring bird or insect. They seem premature, and there is no such evidence of spring as themselves, so that they literally fetch the year about.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

Boiled a handful of rock tripe (Umbilicaria Muhlenbergii) (which Tuckerman says “was the favorite rock tripe in Franklin’s journey”) for more than an hour.

It produced a black puff, looking somewhat like boiled tea-leaves, and was insipid, like rice or starch. The dark water in which it was boiled had a bitter taste, and was slightly gelatinous. The puff was not positively disagreeable to the palate.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

At the end of winter there is a season in which we are daily expecting spring,

and finally a day when it arrives.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

For what a man does abroad by night requires and implies more deliberate energy than what he is encouraged to do in the sunshine….The stillness is more impressive than any sound. The moon, the stars, the trees, the snow, the sand when bare, a monumental stillness whose voice must be supplied by thought…

How much a silent mankind might suggest!

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The river is frozen more solidly than during the past winter, and for the first time for a year I could cross it in most places. I did not once cross it the past winter, though by choosing a safe place I might have done so without doubt once or twice. But I have had no river walks before.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I must not forget the lichen-painted boles of the beeches. So round even to the red-bridge.

Where the red-maple buds are already much expanded—foretelling summer—though our eyes see only winter as yet— As I sit under their boughs looking into the sky—I suddenly see the myriad black dots of the expanded buds against the sky—

Their sap is flowing. The elm buds too I find are expanded though on earth are no signs of spring.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I find a place on the S side of this rocky hill where the snow is melted & the bare grey rock appears covered with mosses & lichens & beds of oak leaves in the hollows—where I can sit—& an invisible flame & smoke seems to ascend from the leaves & the sun shines with a genial warmth & you can imagine the hum of bees amid flowers—that is a near approach to summer. A summer heat reflected from the dry leaves which reminds you of the sweet fern & those summer afternoons which are longer than a winter day. Though you sit on a mere oasis in the snow….

Man is not the final judge of the humblest work—though it be piling wood.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Hear that there was a flock of geese in the river last night. See and hear song sparrows to-day; probably here for several days.

It is an exceedingly warm and pleasant day. The snow is suddenly all gone except heels, and — what is more remarkable — the frost is generally out of the ground, e.g. in our garden, for the reason that it has not been in it. The snow came December 4th, before the ground was frozen to any depth, has been usually deep, and the ground has not been again exposed till now. Hence, though we have had a little very cold weather and a good deal of steady cold, the ground generally has not been frozen.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

These meadows, like all the rest are one great field of ice a foot thick, to their utmost verge far up the hillsides and into the swamps, sloping upward there, without water under it, resting almost everywhere on the ground, a great undulating field of ice, rolling, prairie-like, the earth wearing this dry icy shield or armor, which shines in the sun.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is a very pleasant and warm day, the finest yet, with considerable coolness in the air, however. Winter still.

The air is beautifully clear, and through it I love to trace at a distance the roofs and outlines of sober-colored farm-houses amid the woods.