Having commented on the inaccessibility of rocks to the human spirit, Thoreau points out how much softer they can be than stony-spirited humans.  I smiled when I read that he would escape from hard, insensible men to go and commune with (relatively) soft-hearted rocks.

‘A hard, insensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft.’   15 November 1853

Source: Henry David Thoreau, The Journal 1837-1861, Damion Searls (ed.), preface by John R. Stilgoe (New York: New York Review Books, 2009), p. 236

Photo credit: Jared Erondu at unsplash