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 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,

or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.


The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats.

A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.

There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.


Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises?

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer?


Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, but sincerity was lacking, and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.

The hospitality was as cold as the ices. I thought that there was no need of ice to freeze them.

They talked to me of the age of the wine and the fame of the vintage; but I thought of an older, a newer, and a purer wine, of a more glorious vintage, which they had not got, and could not buy.

The style, the house and grounds and 'entertainment' pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but he made me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for hospitality.

There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. His manners were truly regal. I should have done better had I called on him.


I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around him;

and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.

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.