Original artwork, not a still
Walden · 1854
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.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The speaker wanted to live intensely and to savour existence down to its essence. They describe living plainly and hardily, clearing away everything that was not truly living, and pressing life until only its simplest, most basic terms remained. It is a call for deliberate, stripped-down, wholehearted living.
Context reviewed
