"What we call wildness is a civilization..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
What we call wildness is a civilization other than our own.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“Music is the crystallization of sound.”
“Then at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.”
“A man sits as many risks as he runs.”
More on Wildness
“I want a trouble-maker for a lover, Blood spiller, blood drinker, a heart of flame, Who quarrels with the sky and fights with fate, Who burns like fire on the rushing sea.”
“In literature it is only the wild that attracts us.”
“Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.”
More on Nature
“Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather.”
“The atom cannot disobey the law. Whether it is the mental or the physical atom, it must obey the law. "What is the use of [external restraint]?"”
“Why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.”