Bird Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

— Henry David Thoreau

Birds never sing in caves.

— Henry David Thoreau

A gun will give you the body, not the bird

— Henry David Thoreau

How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?

— Henry David Thoreau

What is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love.

— Henry David Thoreau

Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds?

— Henry David Thoreau

Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots.

— Henry David Thoreau

He who cuts down woods beyond a certain limit exterminates birds.

— Henry David Thoreau

As I love nature, as I love singing birds...I love thee, my friend.

— Henry David Thoreau

We have used up all our inherited freedom, like the young bird the albumen in the egg. It is not an era…

— Henry David Thoreau

Man makes very much such a nest for his domestic animals, of withered grass and fodder, as the squirrels and many other…

— Henry David Thoreau

Today...the bluebirds, old and young, have revisited their box, as if they would fain repeat the summer without intervention of winter, if…

— Henry David Thoreau

Hear! hear!" screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, "winter has a concentrated…

— Henry David Thoreau

The birds I heard today, which, fortunately, did not come within the scope of my science, sang as freshly as if it…

— Henry David Thoreau

If we cannot sing of faith and triumph, we will sing our despair. We will be that kind of bird. There are…

— Henry David Thoreau

This bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above…

— Henry David Thoreau

As I love nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and flowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summer and…

— Henry David Thoreau

When the first light dawned on the earth, and the birds awoke, and the brave river was heard rippling confidently seaward, and…

— Henry David Thoreau

I was awakened at midnight by some heavy, low-flying bird, probably a loon, flapping by close over my head, along the shore.…

— Henry David Thoreau

As for fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought…

— Henry David Thoreau

Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when…

— Henry David Thoreau

This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I…

— Henry David Thoreau

“Instead of singing, like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on…

— Henry David Thoreau

If rightly made, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal, a creature of two elements, related by one half its…

— Henry David Thoreau

It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and…

— Henry David Thoreau

Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that people the air…

— Henry David Thoreau

“We are accustomed to say in New England that few and fewer pigeons visit us every year. Our forests furnish no mast…

— Henry David Thoreau

“I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited…

— Henry David Thoreau

Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow…

— Henry David Thoreau

One little bird not larger than a sparrow, it may have been a Phalarope, would alight on the turbulent surface where the…

— Henry David Thoreau

“There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its…

— Henry David Thoreau

My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and…

— Henry David Thoreau

They are not callow like the young of most birds, but more perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens. The remarkably adult…

— Henry David Thoreau

As our domestic fowls are said to have their original in the wild pheasant of India, so our domestic thoughts have their…

— Henry David Thoreau

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I…

— Henry David Thoreau

Do you know how the naturalist learns all the secrets of the forest, of plants, of birds, of beasts, of reptiles, of…

— Henry David Thoreau

In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to…

— Henry David Thoreau

Homer and Shakespeare and Milton and Marvell and Wordsworth are but the rustling of leaves and crackling of twigs in the forest,…

— Henry David Thoreau

We often love to think now of the life of men on beaches,--at least in midsummer, when the weather is serene; their…

— Henry David Thoreau

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of head…

— Henry David Thoreau