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The Heart of Thoreau's Journals
The conflict between scientific observation and poetry, reflections on abolition, transcendental philosophy, other concerns are explored in this superb general selection from Thoreau's voluminous Journal. Here are "...the choicest fruits of Thoreau..." — Nation.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1920
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447 people want to read
About the author
Henry David Thoreau
2,447 books6,765 followersHenry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, philosopher, and abolitionist who is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."
Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.
More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...
http://thoreau.eserver.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....
http://www.biography.com/people/henry...
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."
Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.
More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...
http://thoreau.eserver.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....
http://www.biography.com/people/henry...
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 18, 2008
Thoreau is his usual ornery/visionary self in these journals: always complaining about something. Interesting to think of the different 19th century "journal styles": Thoreau seems closer to Emerson, for example, than the Englishman Francis Kilvert, though all three of their notebooks are similarly obsessed with nature.
Nature for Americans is something to hang your hat on, and that's what so hilarious to me about this book. Here's Thoreau, proto-hippie, inventor of American wilderness, and he treats Walden Pond like a gigantic I Ching. Further evidence that the Puritan spirit went underground but never disappeared.
Still, if every great diary is a personal, one-man (or woman) self-help book, then Thoreau's teaches: 1) How to be profitably alone, 2) How to feel that nature is a constellation in which you are the single, all-encompassing figure, and 3) How to look at natural objects with a clean eye. He is a GREAT looker. Up there with Tolstoy in this category, especially during the more "boring" parts of the journals (many of which, I'm afraid, have been cut from this edition).
Thoreau was the original Angry Young American and for that I salute him. Like Anne Hutchinson and Jonathan Edwards before him, he taught how much profitable energy can be generated from being secretly or openly against everything. Then he died alone.
Nature for Americans is something to hang your hat on, and that's what so hilarious to me about this book. Here's Thoreau, proto-hippie, inventor of American wilderness, and he treats Walden Pond like a gigantic I Ching. Further evidence that the Puritan spirit went underground but never disappeared.
Still, if every great diary is a personal, one-man (or woman) self-help book, then Thoreau's teaches: 1) How to be profitably alone, 2) How to feel that nature is a constellation in which you are the single, all-encompassing figure, and 3) How to look at natural objects with a clean eye. He is a GREAT looker. Up there with Tolstoy in this category, especially during the more "boring" parts of the journals (many of which, I'm afraid, have been cut from this edition).
Thoreau was the original Angry Young American and for that I salute him. Like Anne Hutchinson and Jonathan Edwards before him, he taught how much profitable energy can be generated from being secretly or openly against everything. Then he died alone.
November 20, 2014
This book took me several months to read but was worth it. Thoreau jumps back and forth between observations about nature and comments about life, people, society, and politics in an impressive way that only someone free of the rat race could make.
Since reading his journal I have been much more conscious of nature and simple changes and sightings are now interesting, and even fascinating.
Warning: Definitely doesn't read like a novel and doesn't flow like Walden, but it is worth the effort if you are a person who looks beyond money, prestige, and society for a fulfilling life.
Since reading his journal I have been much more conscious of nature and simple changes and sightings are now interesting, and even fascinating.
Warning: Definitely doesn't read like a novel and doesn't flow like Walden, but it is worth the effort if you are a person who looks beyond money, prestige, and society for a fulfilling life.
November 15, 2020
You get a very personal look into an author's mind when you read their journals which were written primarily for themselves but also to cache and catalog the ideas which came to them. Thoreau and Emerson had the deepest minds and heart of their transcendental era. This short journal is a wonderful and thoughtful read which taught me much how to write and compose my own journals. Here is one entry so illustrative of his thought, desire and style: At the entrance to the deep cut, I heard the telegraph wire vibrating like an aeolian harp.… It told me by the faintest imaginable strain, he told me by the finest strain that a human ear can hear, yet conclusively and past all refutation, that there were higher, infinitely higher plans of life which it behooved me never to forget. [Thoreau, as he was wanting to be a better writer, then re-describes this memory in different words to make a deeper impression] As I was entering the deep cut, the wind, which was conveying a message to me from heaven, dropped it on the wire of the telegraph which it vibrated as it passed. I instantly sat down on a stone at the foot of the telegraph pole, and attended to the communication. It merely said: “Bear in mind, Child, and never for an instant forget, that there are higher planes, infinitely higher planes of life than this thou art now traveling on. Know that the goal is distant, and is upward, and is worthy of all your life’s effort to attain to.” And then it ceased, and though I sat some minutes longer I heard nothing more. — Henry David Thoreau, journal entry, September 12, 1851
November 10, 2022
thoreau & hozier would’ve been friends. i am now eagerly awaiting a song about telegraph wires.
July 20, 2025
A few words to describe Thoreau after reading these journals:
Naturalist
Philosopher
Idealist
Anti-Christianity-ist
Theologian
Mystic
Narcissist
Transcendentalist
Isolationist
Misanthrope
Moralist
Funny that he would probably recoil at being reduced to labels, but that they can so easily be applied to him seems appropriate for someone so self-consciuosly keen on paradoxes.
Some standout quotations/excerpts:
Undated, 1850: God prefers that you approach him thoughtful, not penitent, though you are the chief of sinners. It is only by forgetting yourself that you drawn near to him.
June, 1850: Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over your head.
Undated, 1850: As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.
Jan. 2, 1853: God exhibits himself to the walker in a frosted bush today sa much as in a buring one to Moses of old.
Jan. 3, 1853: I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him.
June 5, 1853: The New-Englander is a pagan suckled in a creed outworn.
Aug. 7, 1854: How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character?
Sept. 21, 1854: I sometimes seem to myself to owe all my little success, all for which men commend me, to my vices. I am perhaps more willful than others and make enormous sacrifices, even of others' happiness, it may be, to gain my ends. It would seem even as if nothing good could be accomplished without some vice in it.
And on, and on, and on, really. So many big ideas and quotable quotes in here. Yes, hypocrisy, idealism, and absolutism run through the whole lot of it, but Thoreau seems at least to be aware that such things are paradoxically both right and wrong at the same time.
And a note on this particular text: Surprisingly readable print edition from Dover Publications--one of the few (the only?!) I've encountered.
Naturalist
Philosopher
Idealist
Anti-Christianity-ist
Theologian
Mystic
Narcissist
Transcendentalist
Isolationist
Misanthrope
Moralist
Funny that he would probably recoil at being reduced to labels, but that they can so easily be applied to him seems appropriate for someone so self-consciuosly keen on paradoxes.
Some standout quotations/excerpts:
Undated, 1850: God prefers that you approach him thoughtful, not penitent, though you are the chief of sinners. It is only by forgetting yourself that you drawn near to him.
June, 1850: Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over your head.
Undated, 1850: As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.
Jan. 2, 1853: God exhibits himself to the walker in a frosted bush today sa much as in a buring one to Moses of old.
Jan. 3, 1853: I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him.
June 5, 1853: The New-Englander is a pagan suckled in a creed outworn.
Aug. 7, 1854: How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character?
Sept. 21, 1854: I sometimes seem to myself to owe all my little success, all for which men commend me, to my vices. I am perhaps more willful than others and make enormous sacrifices, even of others' happiness, it may be, to gain my ends. It would seem even as if nothing good could be accomplished without some vice in it.
And on, and on, and on, really. So many big ideas and quotable quotes in here. Yes, hypocrisy, idealism, and absolutism run through the whole lot of it, but Thoreau seems at least to be aware that such things are paradoxically both right and wrong at the same time.
And a note on this particular text: Surprisingly readable print edition from Dover Publications--one of the few (the only?!) I've encountered.
September 22, 2024
This selection of entries from Thoreau’s voluminous journals, edited by Odell Shepard, first appeared in 1927 and was revised by him in 1961. I haven’t compared the result to the complete edition of the journals. On Shepard’s telling, he passed over material Thoreau recycled in his published books and the memoranda jotted down after 1852 for a projected history of Concord. Nor have I compared this selection to the more recent one, edited by Damian Searls and published by New York Review Books in 2009. At 700 pages—more than three times as long—even this is only one-tenth of the entire journal.
This is not the kind of book I can read as quickly as a biography or novel. Instead, I read a few entries at a time and chewed on them for a while before dipping in again. For instance, take this early entry that begins: “Let us wander where we will, the universe is built round us, and we are central still.” Is this bald anthropocentrism, or does it contain an insight about consciousness and its objects? Or is it only transcendental solipsism, after all? I like it that I can’t decide. Bookending this entry is one close to the end: “These sparrows, too, are thoughts that I have.”
Although there are gems throughout, in the entries written after he turned forty, Thoreau seems pithier and more mature. When younger, he seemed unable to show his independence in any way other than a reflexive contrariness, now replaced by a calm assurance. Was he aware of how close to death he was? If so, there is no trace of self-pity. In its place, we find closer attention to his observations of nature.
Nearly twenty years earlier, after being chided for his “loitering” and challenged to say what errand he had to mankind, he wrote: “I would secrete pearls with the shellfish and lay up honey with the bees for them. I will sift the sunbeams for the public good.” I’d say he succeeded.
This is not the kind of book I can read as quickly as a biography or novel. Instead, I read a few entries at a time and chewed on them for a while before dipping in again. For instance, take this early entry that begins: “Let us wander where we will, the universe is built round us, and we are central still.” Is this bald anthropocentrism, or does it contain an insight about consciousness and its objects? Or is it only transcendental solipsism, after all? I like it that I can’t decide. Bookending this entry is one close to the end: “These sparrows, too, are thoughts that I have.”
Although there are gems throughout, in the entries written after he turned forty, Thoreau seems pithier and more mature. When younger, he seemed unable to show his independence in any way other than a reflexive contrariness, now replaced by a calm assurance. Was he aware of how close to death he was? If so, there is no trace of self-pity. In its place, we find closer attention to his observations of nature.
Nearly twenty years earlier, after being chided for his “loitering” and challenged to say what errand he had to mankind, he wrote: “I would secrete pearls with the shellfish and lay up honey with the bees for them. I will sift the sunbeams for the public good.” I’d say he succeeded.
July 23, 2025
Began this in May, but then I graduated from college and had to return it to the library, so I finished it some months later thanks to internet archive. Thoreau is one of those writers, like Emerson and Dickinson, in whom noetic gifts of observation and attention awaken only as they are called forth by deeply poetic sensibilities. Such often characterizes the pregnant, laconic form of Dickinson’s poetry, but with Emerson and Thoreau, it could be that the epigrammatic style of their diaries betrays this quality more than their formally rehearsed prose....It's 2 am I need to sleep...may finish this review later...may not....in the mean time I leave a quote:
"I do not judge men by anything they can do. Their greatest deed is the impression they make on me. Some serene, inactive men can do everything. Talent only indicates a depth of character in some direction. We do not acquire the ability to do new deeds, but a new capacity for all deeds. My recent growth does not appear in any visible new talent, but its deed will enter into my gaze when I look into the sky, or vacancy. It will help me to consider ferns and everlasting)."
Suffice it to say, Thoreau really sees people I think. He doesn't always see women...which this selection of journal entries also confirmed, and I know that seems contradictory with what i just said but I think when Thoreau was not writing out of a certain kind of smallness of imagination toward the other sex, he really did see people for who they were. Men, children, and that he was different with women I think was in his case due less to congenital than environmental factors.
"I do not judge men by anything they can do. Their greatest deed is the impression they make on me. Some serene, inactive men can do everything. Talent only indicates a depth of character in some direction. We do not acquire the ability to do new deeds, but a new capacity for all deeds. My recent growth does not appear in any visible new talent, but its deed will enter into my gaze when I look into the sky, or vacancy. It will help me to consider ferns and everlasting)."
Suffice it to say, Thoreau really sees people I think. He doesn't always see women...which this selection of journal entries also confirmed, and I know that seems contradictory with what i just said but I think when Thoreau was not writing out of a certain kind of smallness of imagination toward the other sex, he really did see people for who they were. Men, children, and that he was different with women I think was in his case due less to congenital than environmental factors.
xx-dnf-skim-reference
April 27, 2021Not what I hoped for. Blurb misleads, title is what to pay attention to when choosing. Better, I think, for readers who have already read the writings Thoreau intended for publication and still want more.
Pretty good index (in this old Dover edition I read, at least). I used that to see what the man had to say (according to Shepard's distillation) about various subjects. I think, were I ever to work out a course of study for myself I would read annotated editions of the published works, then a concordance along with the complete journals... and if no concordance exists, write one as I read.
I did learn, somehow never knowing before, that the man died awfully young (44). Tuberculosis was a bad thing, cutting down a lot of good people before they had a chance to complete their life's works. Otoh, since it did take awhile to progress, maybe it spurred them to a sense of urgency and focus....
April 2021
Pretty good index (in this old Dover edition I read, at least). I used that to see what the man had to say (according to Shepard's distillation) about various subjects. I think, were I ever to work out a course of study for myself I would read annotated editions of the published works, then a concordance along with the complete journals... and if no concordance exists, write one as I read.
I did learn, somehow never knowing before, that the man died awfully young (44). Tuberculosis was a bad thing, cutting down a lot of good people before they had a chance to complete their life's works. Otoh, since it did take awhile to progress, maybe it spurred them to a sense of urgency and focus....
April 2021
August 28, 2016
Leaves out the naturalists' observations, if which I would have liked a few examples included (but they are easy enough to find online). Some surprisingly heartbreaking passages on broken friendships as he got older. I skimmed thru some of this as I was mostly grabbing excerpts for an assignment, but kept getting caught up and reading bits unrelated to my project, so I guess that means it's pretty good.
May 17, 2024
Thoreau died at the age of 44 from TB. Influenced in no short measure by nature, Thoreau's desire for self reliance comes through unequivocally in his journal writing. A member of the transcendentalist movement he was close friends with Emerson and the other thinkers in Concord. I have recently been rereading passages I dog eared years ago. Inspirational!!!
September 15, 2008
The blurb says his journals are regarded as his best work. I think that's unfair to Walden. I say read Walden - his great great book - so much more than you expect and so much more independent and rebellious than society's idea of Thoreau would suggest; for more - read the journals.
December 23, 2008
I read this book in college, with a professor who has studied Thoreau's work for years. What an incredible experience-- reading it with him but also the piece itself!
April 2, 2013
I learned so much about Thoreau from reading this book.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews