in Thoreau’s Journal: 

I live in the perpetual verdure of the globe.

I die in the annual decay of nature.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

There is no ripeness which is not, so to speak, something ultimate in itself, and not merely a perfected means to a higher end. In order to be ripe it must serve a transcendent use. The ripeness of a leaf, being perfected, leaves the tree at that point and never returns to it.

It has nothing to do with any other fruit which the tree may bear, and only genius can pluck it. The fruit of a tree is neither in the seed nor in the full-grown tree, but it is simply the highest use to which it can be put.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The water here and there on the meadow begins to appear smooth….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The lilac buds cannot have swolen any since the 25th of Feb– on ac. of the cold– On examining–they look as if they had felt the influence of the previous heat a little– There are narrow light green spaces laid bare along the edges of the brown scales–as if they had expanded so much.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I find that the ice of Walden has melted or softened so much that I sink an inch or more at every step and hardly any where can I cut out a small cake the water collects so fast in hole. 

But at last in a harder & dryer place I succeeded— It was now 15 1/2 inches thick….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

in Thoreau’s Journal:

We talk about spring as at hand before the end of February, and yet it will be two good months, one sixth part of the whole year, before we can go a-Maying.

There may be a whole month of solid and uninterrupted winter yet, plenty of ice and good sleighing. We may not even see the bare ground, and hardly any water; and yet we sit down and warm our spirits annual with the distant prospect of spring. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I did well to walk in the forenoon, the fresh and inspiring half of this bright day, for now, at mid-aftemoon, its brightness is dulled, and a fine stratus is spread over the sky.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

As it is important to consider nature from the point of view of science—remembering the nomenclature and systems of men—& so if possible go a step further in that direction—so it is equally important often to ignore or forget all that men presume that they know—& take an original and unprejudiced view of Nature—letting her make what impression she will on you—as the first men & all children & natural men do.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Health makes the poet—or sympathy with nature—a good appetite for his food which is constantly renewing him—whetting his senses. Pay for your victuals then with poetry—give back life for life.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

In composition I miss the hue of the mind.

As if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning and evening—without their colors—or the heavens without their azure.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature, if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you, know that the morning and spring of your life are past.  Thus you may feel your pulse.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

As we grow older, is it not ominous that we have more to write about evening, less about morning? We must associate more with the early hours.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

We have lived, not in proportion to the number of years that we have spent on the earth, but in proportion as we have enjoyed.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The whole of the day should not be daytime, nor of the night night-time, but some portion be rescued from time to oversee time in. All our hours must not be current; all our time must not lapse. There must be one hour at least which the day did not bring forth, — of ancient parentage and long-established nobility, ––which will be a serene and lofty platform overlooking the rest. We should make our notch every day on our characters, as Robinson Crusoe on his stick. We must be at the helm at least once a day; we must feel the tiller-rope in our hands, and know that if we sail, we steer.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness.  The snow has lodged more or less in perpendicular lines on the northerly sides of trees, so that I am able to tell the points of compass as well as by the sun.  I guide myself accordingly.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

We have had but one & no more this winter (and that I think was the first) of those gentle moist snows which lodge perfectly on the trees—and make perhaps the most beautiful sight of any.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The sky appears broader now than it did. The day has opened its eyelids wider.

The lengthening of the days, commenced a good while ago, is a kind of forerunner of the spring.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

[This post is a fytte or section of Thoreau’s Journal which is a poem.]

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The mice tracks are very amusing. It is surprising how numerous they are—& yet I rarely see one—

….Any tussocky ground is scored with them—  ….You see deep & distinct channels in the snow in some places as if a whole colony had long traveled to & fro in them—a high-way—a well-known trail—but suddenly they will come to an end—& yet they have not dived beneath the snow…