“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves...
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours 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 and within him”
- From the conclusion of Walden by Henry David Thoreau
“The conclusion of Walden is a call to everyone, whatever their present position, whether living alone or in crowds, in the woods or in the city, to have the courage to live a life according to the dictates of the imagination, to live the life one has dreamed.”
– From Henry Thoreau: A life of the Mind by Robert Richardson.
Thoreau died on this date 149 years ago: May 6, 1862 after living his life on his terms.
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2 comments:
I try....... but I fail. This is a bit trite he had a marketable skill....he could write. It's still a creed worth following.
Hello Adrian.
How are you?
Well, yes he could write, but he made very little money doing it. Before Walden, Thoreau spent a year in New York City pounding the pavement, visiting editors but didn't make a penny. His first book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers sold poorly and left him in debt. The publisher returned over 700 of the 1,000 copies printed. And Walden did not sell that well initially: after one year, his first royalty check was $51.60.
Thoreau really didn't find a large audience until after his death. While he was alive, most of his money came from an assortment of odd jobs and he was only 44 years old when he died.
Writing is a tough row to hoe.
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