Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Henry David Thoreau
Chapter 2 : Where I Lived, and What I Lived For (Edited)
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived.
I did not wish to live what was not life,
living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary.
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,
to put to rout all that was not life,
and,
if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world;
or if it were sublime,
to know it by experience.
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I desire to speak somewhere without bounds;
like a man in a waking moment, to men in their waking moments;
for I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation of a true expression.
Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever?
Are you drinking?
2:18 PM