"I went to the woods because I
wanted to live deliberately, to front
only the essential facts of life, and to
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
practice resignation, unless it was
quite necessary.  I wanted to live
deep and suck all the marrow of life,
to live so sturdily and Spartanlike 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 out of it and
publish its meanness to the world; or
if it were sublime, to know it by
experience." ~ Henry David Thoreau



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