Henry David Thoreau Expectations Quotations

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.

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

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

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

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.