Thought begat thought

January 22

My thoughts are my company. They have a certain individuality and separate existence, aye, personality.


Certainly it is a distinct profession to rescue from oblivion the sentiments and thoughts which visit all men more or less generally. Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid.

January 22, 2020

Thoughts accidentally thrown together become a frame in which more may be developed and exhibited.  

Having by chance recorded a few disconnected thoughts and then brought them into juxtaposition, they suggest a whole new field in which it was possible to labor and to think. The contemplation of the unfinished picture may suggest its harmonious completion.


Perhaps this is the main value of a habit of writing, of keeping a journal, - that so we remember our best hours and stimulate ourselves.  Thought begat thought.


To set down such choice experiences that my own writings inspire me and at last may make wholes of parts.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 22, 1852

Keeping a journal, - that so we remember our best hours and stimulate ourselves. See July 13, 1852 ("A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy."); November 16, 1850 ("My Journal should be the record of my love. I would write in it only of the things I love, my affection for any aspect of the world, what I love to think of.") See also July 7, 1851 ("The writer expressing his thought must be . . . well poised upon the facts, the experience, that secures his whole attention! "); May 12, 1857 ("Our past experience is a never-failing capital which can never be alienated, of which each kindred future event reminds us. As the bay-wing sang many thousand years ago, so sang he to-night . . . If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day."); February 13, 1859 ("A transient acquaintance with any phenomenon is not sufficient to make it completely the subject of your muse. You must be so conversant with it as to remember it and be reminded of it long afterward, while it lies remotely fair and elysian in the horizon, approachable only by the imagination.")

Keeping a journal

we remember our best hours

and inspire ourselves.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Thought begat thought
A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau 

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-520122

To set down such choice experiences that my own writings may inspire me and at last I may make wholes of parts.

Certainly it is a distinct profession to rescue from oblivion and to fix the sentiments and thoughts which visit all men more or less generally, that the contemplation of the unfinished picture may suggest its harmonious completion.

Associate reverently and as much as you can with your loftiest thoughts.

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid.

Thoughts accident ally thrown together become a frame in which more may be developed and exhibited.

Perhaps this is the main value of a habit of writing, of keeping a journal, — that so we remember our best hours and stimulate ourselves.

My thoughts are my company.

They have a certain individuality and separate existence, aye, personality.

Having by chance recorded a few disconnected thoughts and then brought them into juxtaposition, they suggest a whole new field in which it was possible to labor and to think.

Thought begat thought.