In Thoreau’s Journal:

Sunrise, —merely a segment of a circle of rich amber in the east, growing brighter and brighter at one point. There is no rosy color at this moment and not a speck in the sky, and now comes the sun with out pomp, a bright liquid gold. Dews come with the grass. There is, I find on examining, a small, clear drop at the end of each blade, quite at the top on one side.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The rain is making the grass grow apace– It appears to stand upright–its blades and you can almost see it grow. For some reason I now remember the autumn–the succory & the golden-rod. We remember autumn to best advantage in the spring–the fine aroma of it reaches us then. Are those the young keys of sugar maples that I see? The Canada? (N Brook’s) plum in bloom & a cherry tree. How closely the flower follows upon if it does not precede the leaf! The leaves are but calyx & escort to the flower. Some beds of clover wave…

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Is not all the summer akin to a paradise.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How dead would the globe seem—especially at this season if it were not for these water surfaces…We are slow to realize water—the beauty & magic of it. It is interestingly strange forever….

I look round with a thrill on this bright fluctuating surface on which no man can walk—whereon is—no trace of foot step—unstained as glass.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

If man is thankful for the serene & warm day—much more are the flowers—

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomenon to the preservation of Moral & intellectual health.

The discipline of the schools or of business—can never impart such serenity to the mind.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Green herbs of all kinds, — buttercups, etc., etc., etc., now make more or less show.

Put this with the grassy season’s beginning.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Leaf-stem, bud, and flower are all very handsome in their place & season.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How cheering & glorious any landscape viewed from an eminence! 

For every one has its horizon & sky. It is so easy to take wide views.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

No thought but is connected as strictly as a flower, with the earth. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Found the first Violet….

The woods have a damp smell this morning — I hear a robin amid them….The grass ground—low ground at least wears a good green tinge now.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Bluets out on the bank by Tarbell’s spring brook, maybe a day or two.

This was a very warm as well as pleasant day, but at one o’clock there was the usual fresh easterly wind and sea-turn, and before night it grew quite cold for the season. The regularity of the recurrence of this phenomenon is remarkable. I have noticed [it], at least, on the 24th late in the day, the 28th and the 29th about 3 p. m., and to-day at 1 p. M. It has been the order. Early in the afternoon, or between one and four, the wind changes (I suppose, though I did not notice its direction in the forenoon), and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It often happens that a man is more humanely related to a cat or dog than to any human being.  What bond is it relates us to any animal we keep in the house but the bond of affection?  In a degree we grow to love each other.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How daring, even rash, Nature appears, who sends out butterflies so early?

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is astonishing how soon and unexpectedly flowers appear, when the fields are scarcely tinged with green. Yesterday, for instance, you observed only the radical leaves of some plants; to-day you pluck a flower.

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 I hear a robin sing at sunset, I cannot help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man. We return from the lyceum and caucus with such stir and excitement, as if a crisis were at hand; but no natural scene or sound sympathizes with us, for Nature is always silent and unpretending as at the break of day. She but rubs her eyelids.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How rarely a mans love for nature becomes a ruling principle with him, like a youth’s affection for a maiden, but more enduring!  All nature is my bride.

That nature which to one is a stark and ghastly solitude is a sweet, tender, and genial society to another.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is not the invitation which I hear, but which I feel, that I obey.