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 to suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and spartan-like as to put to route all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and to 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 meaness to the world; or if it be sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

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...

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.

--henry david thoreau