Quotes from Henry David Thoreau
Take several minutes to carefully read aloud the quotes below.
Check any that you feel strongly about and that embody an aspect of Naturalism (look up the meaning). Select three quotes and write them on a piece of paper, along with a personal
reflection of at least two or three paragraphs each.
You can:
(A) write in the form of a journal on a personal experience you have had which connects with Thoreau’s lesson,
(B) explain how Thoreau’s beliefs still apply to the modern age, or
(C) make an in-depth inference from the quote, taking its lesson further.
Quotes:
Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of beauty,
as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds.
from the Journal (June 20, 1840)
Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields,
not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps.
From the essay Walking
You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods
that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.
from the chapter “Brute Neighbors” in Walden
A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature.
It is Earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures
the depth of his own nature.
from the chapter “The Ponds” in Walden
The frontiers are not east or west, north or south,
but wherever a man “fronts” a fact.
As surely as the sunset in my latest November
shall translate me to the ethereal world,
and remind me of the ruddy morning of youth;
as surely as the last strain of music which falls on my decaying ear
shall make age to be forgotten,
or, in short, the manifold influences of nature
survive during the term of our natural life,
so surely my Friend shall forever be my Friend,
and reflect a ray of God to me,
and time shall foster and adorn and consecrate our Friendship,
no less than the ruins of temples.
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself,
than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves,
dispel the clouds which hang over our brows,
and take up a little life into our pores.
Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor,
but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world.
from the chapter “Economy” in Walden
—
The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground,
a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world.
It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land
are too far-travelled and untamable to be familiar.
Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam,
it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime.
from the chapter “The Sea And The Desert” in Cape Cod
—
The physiologist says it [ripening of fruit] is “due to an increased absorption of oxygen.”
That is the scientific account of the matter, — only a reassertion of the fact.
But I am more interested in the rosy cheek than I am to know
what particular diet the maiden fed on.
from Chapter 1 of Autumnal Tints
