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Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Music

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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Henry David Thoreau
Success, Music, Forgiveness
Walden ch. 18 (1854). Frequently quoted as "marches to the tune of a different drummer."

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Loneliness, Being Single
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.29, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

You cannot hear music and noise at the same time.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Noise
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.129, Courier Corporation

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Fear, Failure
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.13, Heron Dance Press

I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man: wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of dashing the hopes of a morningwith a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by them! Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Wise, Drinking
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.183, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I sailed on the North River last night with my flute, and my music was a tinkling stream which meandered with the river, and fell from note to note as a brook from rock to rock. I did not hear the strains after they had issued from the flute, but before they were breathed into it, for the original strain precedes the sound by as much as the echo follows after, and the rest is the perquisite of the rocks and trees and beasts. Unpremeditated music is the true gauge which measures the current of our thoughts, the very undertow of our life's stream.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Night, Echoes
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2088, Delphi Classics

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Men, Piano
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.97, Courier Corporation

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Fear, Danger
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.13, Heron Dance Press

The hounding of a dog pursuing a fox or other animal in the horizon may have first suggested the notes of the hunting-horn to alternate with and relieve the lungs of the dog. This natural bugle long resounded in the woods of the ancient world before the horn was invented.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Dog, Animal
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden and Other Writings”, p.44, Bantam Classics

Music is perpetual, and only the hearing is intermittent.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Hearing, Intermittent

The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Spring, Pleasure
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.13, Heron Dance Press

Listen to music religiously, as if it were the last strain you might hear.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Might, Lasts
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.44, Courier Corporation

As polishing expresses the vein in marble, and grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. The hero is the sole patron of music.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Hero, Veins
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.123, Xist Publishing

Music is the sound of the universal laws promulgated. It is the only assured tone. There are in it such strains as far surpass anyman's faith in the loftiness of his destiny. Things are to be learned which it will be worth the while to learn.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Knowledge, Destiny
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.124, Xist Publishing

Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever?

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Forever, Speech
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.190, Graphic Arts Books

Was awakened in the night to a strain of music dying away, - passing travellers singing. My being was so expanded and infinitely and divinely related for a brief season that I saw how unexhausted, how almost wholly unimproved, was man's capacity for a divine life. When I remembered what a narrow and finite life I should anon awake to!

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Night, Men
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.159, Courier Corporation

The music of all creatures has to do with their loves, even of toads and frogs. Is it not the same with man?

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Men, Toads
Henry David Thoreau, Abigail Rorer (2010). “Of Woodland Pools, Spring-holes & Ditches: Excerpts from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau Wherein He Observes and Reflects Upon the Nature of Life and Vernal Pools”, p.60, Counterpoint Press

A thrumming of piano-strings beyond the gardens and through the elms. At length the melody steals into my being. I know not when it began to occupy me. By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, my being moves in a sphere of melody, my fancy and imagination are excited to an inconceivable degree. This is no longer the dull earth on which I stood.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Moving, Garden
Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.91, Courier Corporation

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