Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862 | Concord, Massachusetts
The man who went to the woods to live deliberately. For two years, Thoreau built a cabin at Walden Pond to strip life to its essentials. His experiment yielded Walden, America's most profound meditation on nature and simplicity. His night in jail for refusing to pay taxes that supported slavery produced "Civil Disobedience," which would inspire Gandhi and King. He died at 44, his journals revealing a mind devoted to observing the infinite details of the natural world.
Thoreau's Works
Nature writing and moral philosophy"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
- Walden
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life."
- Walden
"That government is best which governs least."
- Civil Disobedience
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
- Walden
"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify."
- Walden