in Thoreau’s Journal:

How little that occurs to us are we prepared at once to appreciate.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

As I cannot go upon a Northwest Passage, then I will find a passage round the actual world where I am. Connect the Behring Straits and Lancaster Sounds of thought;

winter on Melville Island, and make a chart of Banks Land; explore the northward-trending Wellington Inlet, where there is said to be a perpetual open sea, cutting my way through floes of ice.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Winter breaks up within us. The frost is coming out of me, and I am heaved like the road.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

No wonder we feel the spring influences. There is a motion in the very ground under our feet.

Each rill is peopled with new life rushing up it.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I am surprised at the sudden change in the Walden ice with five days.  In cutting a hole now, instead of hard, dry, transparent chips of ice, you make a fine white snow, very damp and adhering together, with but few chips in it. 

The ice has been affected throughout its twenty-six inches, though most, I should say above.  Hard to say exactly where the ice begins, under the two inches of snow.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

What a solid winter we have had! No thaw of any consequence; no bare ground since December 25th; but an unmelting mass of snow and ice, hostile to all greenness.

Have not seen a green radical leaf even, as usual, all being covered up.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

 I catch myself philosophizing most abstractly when first returning to consciousness in the night or morning.

I make the truest observations and distinctions then, when the will is yet wholly asleep and the mind works like a machine without friction.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Before sunrise. With what infinite and unwearied expectation and proclamation the cocks usher in every dawn as if there had never been one before. And the dog barks still and the thallus of lichens springs, so tenacious of life is nature.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The religion I love is very laic.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

If I know what I love, it is because I remember it.  

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How alone must our life be lived! We dwell on the seashore, and none between us and the sea. Men are my merry companions, my fellow-pilgrims, who beguile the way but leave me at the first turn in the road, for none are travelling one road so far as myself.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is essential that a man confine himself to pursuits —a scholar, for instance, to studies —which lie next to and conduce to his life, which do not go against the grain, either of his will or his imagination. The scholar finds in his experience some studies to be most fertile and radiant with light, others dry, barren, and dark. If he is wise, he will not persevere in the last, as a plant in a cellar will strive toward the light. He will confine the observations of his mind as closely as possible to the experience or life of his senses. His thought must live with and be inspired with the life of the body. The deathbed scenes and observations even of the best and wisest afford but a sorry picture of our humanity. Some men endeavor to live a constrained life, to subject their whole lives to their wills, as he who said he would give a sign if he were conscious after his head was cut off, —but he gave no sign. 

Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows.  

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I wish so to live ever as to derive my satisfaction and inspirations from the commonest events, every-day phenomena,

so that what my senses hourly perceive in my daily walk, the conversations of my neighbors, may inspire me and I may dream of no heaven but that which lies about me.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Thermometer at 7 a. m. 6° below zero. Dr. Bartlett’s, between 6.30 and 7 a. m., was at— 13° ; Smith’s at -13° or -14°, at 6 a. m.

P. M.—Up river to Hubbard Bridge.

Thermometer +9° at 3.30 p. m. (the same when I return at five). The snow hard and dry, squeaking under the feet; excellent sleighing. A biting northwest wind compels to cover the ears. It is one of the hardest days of the year to bear.

Truly a memorable 10th of March. There is no opening yet in the main stream at Prichard’s, Hubbard Bath, or the Clamshell, or probably anywhere but at Merrick’s, and that a dozen rods long by ten feet; and it is tight and strong under the bridges. A bluebird would look as much out of place now as the 10th of January.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

In the spaces of still, open water I see the reflection of the hills and woods, which for so long I have not seen, and it gives expression to the face of nature. The face of nature is lit up by these reflections in still water in the spring.

Sometimes you see only the top of distant hill reflected far within the meadow, where a dull, gray field of ice intervenes between the water and the shore.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The wind shifts from northeast and east, to north-west and south, and every icicle which has tinkled on the meadow grass so long—trickles down its stem and seeks its water level unerringly with a million comrades. In the ponds the ice cracks with a busy and inspiriting din—and down the larger streams is whirled, grating hoarsely and crashing its way along—which was so lately a firm field for the woodman’s team and the fox—sometimes with the tracks of the skaters still fresh upon it—and the holes cut for pickerel. Town committees inspect the bridges and causeways—as if by mere eye-force to intercede with the ice, and save the treasury.

In the brooks the slight grating sound of small cakes of ice floating with various speed, is full of content and promise, and where the water gurgles under a natural bridge you may hear these hasty rafts hold conversation in an under tone.

Every rill is a channel for the juices of the meadow. Last years grasses and flower stalks have been steeped in rain and snow, and now the brooks flow with meadow tea—thoroughwort mint, flagroot and pennyroyal, all at one draught.

In the ponds the sun makes encroachments around the edges first, as ice melts in a kettle on the fire—darting his rays through this crevice; and preparing the deep water to act simultaneously on the under side.

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 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:

So far as the natural history is concerned,

you often have your choice between uninteresting truth and interesting falsehood.