in Thoreau’s Journal:

How we prize any redness on the ground….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. To my neighbors who have risen in mist and rain I tell of a clear sunrise and the singing of birds as some traditionary mythus.

I look back to those fresh but now remote hours as to the old dawn of time, when a solid and blooming health reigned and every deed was simple and heroic.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The infinite bustle of Nature of a summer’s noon, or her infinite silence of a summer’s night, gives utterance to no dogma.

They do not say to us even with a seer’s assurance, that this or that law is immutable and so ever and only can the universe exist. But they are the indifferent occasion for all things and the annulment of all laws.

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:

Stood by the riverside early this morning. The water has been rising during the night. The sun has been shining on it half an hour. It is quite placid. The village smokes are seen against the long hill. And now I see the river also is awakening, a slight ripple beginning to appear on its surface. It wakens like the village.

It proves a beautiful day, and I see that glimmering or motion in the air just above the fields, which we associate with heat.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Might I not write on sunshine as well as moonshine?

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Would it not be a fine office to preserve the vert of this forest in which I ramble?

in Thoreau’s Journal:

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

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A driving snow storm in the night & still raging––5 or 6 inches deep on a level at 7 Am. All birds are turned into snow birds. Trees and houses have put on the aspect of winter.  The travelers carriage wheels, the farmer’s wagon are converted into white disks of snow through which the spokes hardly appear. But it is good now to stay in the house & read & write. We do not now go wandering all abroad & dissipated––but the imprisoning storm condenses our thoughts–– My life is enriched–  I love to hear the wind howl. I have a fancy for sitting with my book or paper––in some mean & apparently unfavorable place––in the kitchen for instance where the work is going on––rather a little cold than comfortable–– –– My thoughts are of more worth in such places than they would be in a well-furnished & warmed studio.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The road through the pitch pine woods beyond J. Hosmer’s is very pleasant to me, curving under the pines close abutting on it, yellow in the sun and low-pines, without a fence,—the sandy road, with the branched, with younger pines filling up all to the ground.

I love to see a sandy road like this curving through a pitch pine wood where the trees closely border it without fences, a great cart-path merely. That is a pleasant part of the North River, under the black birches. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A greater baldness my life seeks, as the crest of some bare hill, which towns and cities do not afford— I want a directer relation with the sun.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A strong south wind and overcast There is the slightest perceptible green on the hill now. No doubt in a rain it would be pretty obvious.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The male red maple buds now show 8 or 10 (counting everything) scales alternately crosswise—& the pairs successively brighter red or scarlet, which will account for the gradual reddening of their tops. They are about ready to open.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Now the sun is low in the west the northeasterly water is of a peculiarly etherial light blue, more beautiful than the sky—and this broad water with innumerable bays & inlets running up into the land on either side—& often divided by bridge causeways—as if it were the very essence & richness of the heavens distilled and poured upon the earth, contrasting with the clean russet land—& the paler sky from which it has been subtracted—nothing can be more elysian. Is not the blue more etherial when the sun is at this angle— The river is but a long chain of flooded meadows—

in Thoreau’s Journal:

One thing I may depend on, there has been no idling with the flowers.

Nature loses not a moment, takes no vacation. They advance as steadily as a clock.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It seemed that nature sympathised with his [Humboldt] experiments when it had got to be April I heard it last.

It was simply the regulated & increased tinkling of a brook—as the history of simpler ages—as the memory of early days comes over a man—so this sound of the night—  It sounded like a sentence of Herodotus— It was an incident worthy to be recorded by the father of History—away in nut meadow—by Jenny Dugan’s—beyond the Jimmy Miles place—as if it were an alto singer among the bitterns.  Some ardea.  It was news [of] a wind from Scythia. It was the dream or reminiscence of a primitive age coming over the modern life—as night veils the day—as the dews of evening succeed the sutltry sun.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A fine morning—still & bright with smooth water—and singing of song & tree sparrows & some black-birds….All the earth is bright. The very pines glisten–& the water is a bright blue….

Not only are the evergreens brighter–but the pools–as that upland one behind Lees–the ice as well as snow–about their edges being now completely melted–have a peculiarly warm & bright April look–as if ready to be inhabited by frogs.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

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.