Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Wilderness

• I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Believe, Yield

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.59, Heron Dance Press

• We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Rain, Clouds, Sight

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.205, Cosimo, Inc.

• I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Cutting, Wish

  Walden ch. 2 (1854)

• In wildness is the preservation of the world.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Camping, World, Transcendentalism

  "Walking" (1862)

• I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Death

  Walden ch. 2 (1854)

• I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Adventure, Dead Poets Society

  Walden ch. 2 (1854)

• All good things are wild and free.

  Henry David Thoreau

  I Hate You, Independence, Liberty

  Henry David Thoreau (2010). “Wild Apples and Other Natural History Essays”, p.82, University of Georgia Press

• The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Beautiful, Nature, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.120, Xist Publishing

• We need the tonic of the wilderness, to wade sometimes in the marsh where the bitten and the meadow hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Adventure, Smell, Needs

• Life consists with Wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest trees.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Men, Climbing

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.11, 谷月社

• I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dead Poets Society, Transcendentalism, Wilderness

  "Walden: Or, Life in the Woods".

• The Library is a wilderness of books.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Reading, Library

  Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.84, Courier Corporation

• It is a thorough process, this war with the wilderness - breaking nature, taming the soil. feeding it on oats. The civilized man regards the pine tree as his enemy. He will fell it and let in the light, grub it up and raise wheat or rye there. It is no better than a fungus to him.

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Men, Light

  David R. Foster, Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Thoreau's Country: Journey through a Transformed Landscape”, p.38, Harvard University Press

• I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Practice, Wish, Transcendentalism

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.3143, Delphi Classics

• Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Imagination, Doe

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods”, p.93, Graphic Arts Books

• The most primitive places left with us are the swamps, where the spruce still grows shaggy with usnea.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Swamps, Wilderness, Primitive

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.87, Trajectory Inc

• It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dream, Bogs, Wilderness

  David R. Foster, Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Thoreau's Country: Journey through a Transformed Landscape”, p.5, Harvard University Press

• A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forest rots below,--such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Poetry, Age, Honey

  Henry David Thoreau (1993). “Civil Disobedience, and Other Essays”, p.63, Courier Corporation

• What is most striking in the Maine wilderness is the continuousness of the forest, with fewer open intervals or glades than you had imagined. Except the few burnt lands, the narrow intervals on the rivers, the bare tops of the high mountains, and the lakes and streams, the forest is uninterrupted.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Lakes, Land, Rivers

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.80

• What a glorious time they must have in that wilderness, far from mankind and election day!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Time, Politics, Election

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.630, Delphi Classics

• The most domestic cat, which has lain on a rug all her days, appears quite at home in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself more native there than the regular inhabitants.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Home, Cat, Woods

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.141, Graphic Arts Books

• In the wilderness is the salvation of the world.

  Henry David Thoreau

  World, Wilderness, Salvation

• But there are spirits of a yet more liberal culture, to whom no simplicity is barren. There are not only stately pines, but fragile flowers, like the orchises, commonly described as too delicate for cultivation, which derive their nutriment from the crudest mass of peat. These remind us, that, not only for strength, but for beauty, the poet must, from time to time, travel the logger's path and the Indian's trail, to drink at some new and more bracing fountain of the Muses, far in the recesses of the wilderness.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Flower, Simplicity

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.160

• New York has her wilderness within her own borders; and though the sailors of Europe are familiar with the soundings of her Hudson, and Fulton long since invented the steamboat on its waters, an Indian is still necessary to guide her scientific men to its headwaters in the Adirondack country.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, New York, Native American

  Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.299, Macmillan

• I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence of men's beginning to redeem themselves.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Men, Earth

  Henry David Thoreau, Joseph O. Valentine, Thoreau Society (2001). “Thoreau on Land: Nature's Canvas”, p.84, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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