Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Expectations

• We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Optimistic, Heartache

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.59, Courier Corporation

• Every wild apple shrub excites our expectation thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson to man! So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate; and only the most persistent and strongest genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth. Poets and philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast the hosts of unoriginal men.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Children, Spring

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.399, Simon and Schuster

• We soon get through with nature. She excites an expectation which she cannot satisfy.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Hope, Expectations

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.131, Courier Corporation

• Give me the old familiar walk, postoffice and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten. We'll go nutting once more. We'll pluck the nut of the world, and crack it in the winter evenings. Theaters and all other sightseeing are puppet-shows in comparison. I will take another walk to the Cliff, another row on the river, another skate on the meadow, be out in the first snow, and associate with the winter birds. Here I am at home. In the bare and bleached crust of the earth I recognize my friend.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Home, Winter

• Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Expectations, Answers, Demand

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.209, Xist Publishing

• The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Track, Expectations, Answers

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.153

• The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sleep, Men, Expectations

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.142

• Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Philosophical, Expectations

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience: Top American Literary”, p.131, 谷月社

• I seem to have dodged all my days with one or two persons, and lived upon expectation,--as if the bud would surely blossom; and soI am content to live.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Two, Expectations, Optimism

• Give me the old familiar world, post-office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Faith, Inspiration, Self

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.201, Courier Corporation

• Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest and most familiar reputation.... His recent tracks still give variety to a winter's walk. I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tip-toe of expectation as if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Winter, Expectations, Track

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Excursions (Annotated Edition)”, p.16, Jazzybee Verlag

• We soon get through with Nature. She excites an expectation which she cannot satisfy. The merest child which has rambled into a copsewood dreams of a wildness so wild and strange and inexhaustible as Nature can never show him.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dream, Nature, Children

  Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Material Faith: Thoreau on Science”, p.62, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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