Walden

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to

It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the saint dwell there so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots.

Si Thoreau part ainsi vivre dans les bois, ce n’est évidemment pas uniquement pour maintenir sa chaleur vitale de la manière la plus économique possible, mais c’est qu’il veut « vivre sans hâte, faire face seulement aux faits essentiels de la vie, découvrir ce qu’elle avait à m’enseigner, afin de ne pas m’apercevoir, à l’heure de ma mort, que je n’

In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.