"You may tell by looking at any..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
You may tell by looking at any twig of the forest, ay, at your very wood-pile, whether its winter is past or not.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“Truth is always paradoxical.”
“We falsely attribute to men a determined character - putting together all their yesterdays - and averaging them - we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is the silent poor indeed.”
“Any moral philosophy is exceedingly rare. This of Menu addresses our privacy more than most. It is a more private and familiar, and at the same time, a more public and universal word, than is spoken in parlor or pulpit nowadays.”
More on Observation
“Until I came to New Mexico, I never realized how much beauty water adds to a river.”
“I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.”
“The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.”
More on Nature
“I am haunted by numberless islands, many a Danaan shore,Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the flames would we be,Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!”
“A dilettantism in nature is barren and unworthy. A fop of fields is no better than his brother on Broadway.”
“To Time it never seems that he is braveTo set himself against the peaks of snowTo lay them level with the running wave,Nor is he overjoyed when they lie low,But only grave, contemplative and grave.”