"The first sparrow of spring! The year..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever!... What at such a time are histories, chronologies, traditions, and all written revelations? The brooks sing carols and glees to the spring.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“From my experience with wild apples, I can understand that there may be reason for a savage's preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit.”
“To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for them to dwell in or resort to. So it is with man. A hundred years ago they sold bark in our streets peeled from our own woods. In the very aspect of those primitive and rugged trees there was, methinks, a tanning principle which hardened and consolidated the fibres of men's thoughts. Ah! already I shudder for these comparatively degenerate days of my native village, when you cannot collect a load of bark of good thickness, and we no longer produce tar and turpentine.”
“Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic.”
More on Spring
“In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”
“When daffodils begin to peer,With heigh! the doxy, over the dale,Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.”
“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.”
More on Hope
“But I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some twenty years ago: if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future.”
“My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.”
“All's well that ends better.”