Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Winter

I grow savager and savager every day, as if fed on raw meat, and my tameness is only the repose of untamableness. I dream of looking abroad summer and winter, with free gaze, from some mountain-side,... to be nature

I grow savager and savager every day, as if fed on raw meat, and my tameness is only the repose of untamableness. I dream of looking abroad summer and winter, with free gaze, from some mountain-side,... to be nature looking into nature with such easy sympathy as the blue-eyed grass in the meadow looks in the face of the sky. From some such recess I would put forth sublime thoughts daily, as the plant puts forth leaves.

Henry David Thoreau

Summer, Dream, Winter

Henry David Thoreau (1974). “The correspondence of Henry David Thoreau”, Greenwood Pub Group

In the summer we lay up a stock of experiences for the winter, as the squirrel of nuts?something for conversation in winter evenings.

Henry David Thoreau

Summer, Winter, Squirrels

Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861”, p.74, New York Review of Books

Tis now the twenty-third of march, And this warm sun takes out the starch Of winter's pinafore - Methinks The Very pasture gladly drinks A health to spring, and while it sips It faintly smacks a myriad lips.

Henry David Thoreau

Spring, Winter, Twenties

Elizabeth Hall Witherell, Henry David Thoreau (1979). “The Poetry of Henry David Thoreau: A Selected Critical Edition”

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beechtree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

Henry David Thoreau

Nature, Winter, Eight

'Walden' (1854) 'Winter Visitors'

We loiter in winter while it is already spring.

Henry David Thoreau

Spring, Winter, Gentle Rain

Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.324, Penguin

"Hear! hear!" screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, "winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it."

Henry David Thoreau

Winter, Tree, Looks

Henry David Thoreau (1962). “Journal”

That grand old poem called Winter

Henry David Thoreau

Winter, January

Henry David Thoreau, Ronald A. Bosco (2005). “Nature's Panorama: Thoreau on the Seasons”, p.78, Univ of Massachusetts Press

What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter's day?

Henry David Thoreau

Sunshine, Winter, Fire

Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1008, Delphi Classics

In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts.

Henry David Thoreau

Heart, Winter, Inward

Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.54, Penguin

I think of no news to tell you. It is a serene summer day here, all above the snow. The hens steal their nests, and I steal theireggs still, as formerly. This is what I do with the hands. Ah, labor,--it is a divine institution, and conversation with many men and hens.

Henry David Thoreau

Summer, Winter, Men

Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Familiar Letters - The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, p.44, Read Books Ltd

They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself.

Henry David Thoreau

Spring, Winter, Men

Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.26, Courier Corporation

Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest and most familiar reputation.... His recent tracks still give variety to a winter's walk. I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tip-toe of expectation as if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair.

Henry David Thoreau

Winter, Expectations, Track

Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Excursions (Annotated Edition)”, p.16, Jazzybee Verlag

Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.

Henry David Thoreau

Summer, Kings, Winter

Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Walden, Civil Disobedience, and Other Writings: Authoritative Texts, Journal, Reviews and Posthumous Assessments, Criticism”, W W Norton & Company Incorporated

There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning.

Henry David Thoreau

Morning, Winter, Heroism

Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.164, Jazzybee Verlag

I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plow for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three-o'-clock-in-the-morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen.

Henry David Thoreau

Morning, Sleep, Winter

Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.115, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

We must take root; send out some little fibre at least, even every winter day.

Henry David Thoreau

Winter, Roots, Littles

Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861”, p.428, New York Review of Books

Nature has many scenes to exhibit, and constantly draws a curtain over this part or that. She is constantly repainting the landscape and all surfaces, dressing up some scene for our entertainment. Lately we had a leafy wilderness; now bare twigs begin to prevail, and soon she will surprise us with a mantle of snow. Some green she thinks so good for our eyes that, like blue, she never banishes it entirely from our eyes, but has created evergreens.

Henry David Thoreau

Eye, Winter, Thinking

Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2799, Delphi Classics

In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are halfconcealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends.... We enjoy now, not an Oriental, but a Boreal leisure, around warm stoves and fireplaces, and watch the shadow of motes in the sunbeams.

Henry David Thoreau

Heart, Winter, Doors

When the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winterdecent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears.

Henry David Thoreau

Weed, Spring, Winter

The fire is the main comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter, and is about as ample at one season as at another. It is as well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness.

Henry David Thoreau

Summer, Winter, Fire

Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.38

In the winter, warmth stands for all virtue.

Henry David Thoreau

Winter, Virtue, Warmth

Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1008, Delphi Classics

There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill.

Henry David Thoreau

Nature, Winter, Fire

Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.47, Penguin

A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself.

Henry David Thoreau

Winter, Wind, Mountain

Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1007, Delphi Classics

The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact.... In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold.

Henry David Thoreau

Winter, Charity, Woods

Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.47, Penguin

How wholesome winter is, seen far or near; how good, above all mere sentimental, warm-blooded, short-lived, soft-hearted, moral goodness, commonly so called. Give me the goodness which has forgotten its own deeds,--which God has seen to be good, and let be.

Henry David Thoreau

Winter, Hypocrisy, Giving

Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.284, Jazzybee Verlag

Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Winter

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