A whole new field ...

Thoughts accidentally 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 labour and to think. Thought begat thought.

From Henry David Thoreau, The Journal, 1837-1861, edited by Damion Searles (New York, 2009), entry for Jan. 22. 1852.