Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Henry David Thoreau

Quote by Henry David Thoreau

“How is it that what is actually present and transpiring is commonly perceived by the common sense and understanding only, is bare and bald, without halo or the blue enamel of intervening air? But let it be past or to come, and it is at once idealized. It is not simply the understanding now, but the imagination, that takes cognizance of it. The imagination requires a long range. It is the faculty of the poet to see present things as if, in this sense, also past and future, as if distant or universally significant.”

Quote by Henry David Thoreau

Work

The Journal, 1837-1861

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Henry David Thoreau

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Henry David Thoreau. more

You May Also Like

“I will serve up delights you've never imagined,' Locke's smile is infectious. He will serve up trouble, that's for sure. Trouble I have no time for. 'Have a care,' I say, drawing Locke's attention to me for the first time. 'I am sure you would not wish to insult the High King's imagination.' 'Indeed, I'm sure not,' Cardan says in a way that's difficult to interpret.”

“There is a widely held belief that the imagination is not to be trusted and that only things scientifically real and provable can be relied on. Yet, many of your greatest scientific inventions comes from the imagination. [...] Everything in your reality existed as a thought before it existed in reality.”

“. . . beneath the surface, Emily was trying to understand if writers were responsible for the feelings they prompted in others: if hurling a word had the same effect as throwing a stone. Was imagination—like a loaded gun—the one pulling the trigger?”

“Ever Wonder? by Stewart Stafford Ever wonder why the gales howl? Screams of the multitude departed, In all those mauling, biting attacks, Life numbed in interminable silence. Ever wonder why woods are tangled? Matted hair from a sprite's dwelling, To catch the lost, nosey and wandering, Their hair caught to make new tangles. Ever wonder how waves roll over white? Sea horses rising and diving underneath, The sun striking their wet necks glinting, A trick of the light of white horses riding. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”