in Thoreau’s Journal:

Speech never made man master of men, but the eloquently refraining from it.

in Thoreau’s Journal:  

I am surprised to find Walden completely open. When did it open? According to all accounts, it must have been between the 6th and 9th. Fair Haven must have opened entirely the 5th or 6th, and Walden very nearly at the same time. This proves how steadily it has been melting, notwithstanding the severe cold of the last half of March; i. e., it is less affected by transient heat or cold than most ponds.

The flowers have blossomed very suddenly this year as soon as the long cold spell was over, and almost all together.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

As to which are the earliest flowers, it depends on the character of the season, and ground bare or not, meadows wet or dry, etc., etc., also on the variety of soils and localities within your reach.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Went to walk in the woods. When I had got half a mile or more away in the woods alone, and was sitting on a rock, was surprised to be joined by R.’s large Newfoundland dog Ranger, who had smelled me out and so tracked me. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Last night a snow-storm, and this morning we find the ground covered again six or eight inches deep — and drifted pretty badly beside.

The conductor in the cars, which have been detained more than an hour, says it is a dry snow up-country. Here it is very damp.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The long series of desultory mornings does not tarnish the brightness of the prospective days. Surely faith is not dead.

Wood, water, earth, air, are essentially what they were; only society has degenerated. The lament for a golden age is only a lament for golden men.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The atmosphere of morning gives a healthy hue to our prospects.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The last two Tribunes I have not looked at-  I have no time to read newspapers- If you chance to live & move and have your being in that thin stratum-in which the events which make the news transpire––thinner than the paper on which it is printed––then these things will fill the world for you–but if you soar above or dive below that plain—you cannot remember nor be reminded of them.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I do not value any view of the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very largely and absorb much of the attention.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How unexpectedly dumb and poor and cold does Nature look, when, where we had expected to find a glassy lake reflecting the skies and trees in the spring,

we find only dull, white ice. Such I am, no doubt, to many friends.