Forests Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

What would human life be without forests, those natural cities?

— 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…

— Henry David Thoreau

Every blade in the field - Every leaf in the forest - lays down its life in its season as beautifully as…

— Henry David Thoreau

What is sour in the house a bracing walk in the woods makes sweet.

— Henry David Thoreau

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it.

— Henry David Thoreau

It is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time.

— Henry David Thoreau

I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows.

— Henry David Thoreau

It is darker in the woods, even in common nights, than most suppose.

— Henry David Thoreau

Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved bythem.…

— Henry David Thoreau

The forests are held cheap after the white pine has been culled out; and the explorers and hunters pray for rain only…

— Henry David Thoreau

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beechtree, or a yellow birch,…

— Henry David Thoreau

When the State wishes to endow an academy or university, it grants it a tract of forest land: one saw represents an…

— Henry David Thoreau

Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail…

— Henry David Thoreau

By what a delicate and far-stretched contribution every island is made! What an enterprise of nature thus to lay the foundations of…

— 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

The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country,…

— Henry David Thoreau

The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as…

— 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

A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forestrots below,such a town is fitted to raise not only corn…

— Henry David Thoreau

Why should not we, who have renounced the king's authority, have our national preserves, where no villages need be destroyed, in which…

— Henry David Thoreau

The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds…

— Henry David Thoreau

It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New…

— Henry David Thoreau

The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the…

— Henry David Thoreau

The very willow-rows lopped every three years for fuel or powder, - and every sizable pine and oak, or other forest tree,…

— Henry David Thoreau

In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a strain of music, whether produced by an instrument…

— Henry David Thoreau

See yonder thin column of smoke curling up through the woods from some invisible farmhouse, the standard raised over some rural homestead……

— Henry David Thoreau

To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for them to dwell in or resort to. So it is…

— Henry David Thoreau

The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild…

— Henry David Thoreau

Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all…

— Henry David Thoreau

As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my…

— Henry David Thoreau

How far men go for the material of their houses! The inhabitants of the most civilized cities, in all ages, send into…

— Henry David Thoreau

The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every State which…

— Henry David Thoreau

Life consists with Wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed…

— Henry David Thoreau

The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is…

— Henry David Thoreau

As far as our noblest hardwood forests are concerned, the animals, especially squirrels and jays, are our greatest and almost only benefactors.…

— Henry David Thoreau

The sugar maple is remarkable for its clean ankle. The groves of these trees looked like vast forest sheds, their branches stoppingshort…

— Henry David Thoreau

I would that our farmers when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when…

— Henry David Thoreau

What is most striking in the Maine wilderness is the continuousness of the forest, with fewer open intervals or glades than you…

— 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

Within the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of…

— Henry David Thoreau