Original artwork, not a still
Walden • 1854
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essentials 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.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The speaker describes going into the woods to live deliberately and learn from essentials, hoping to avoid reaching death without having lived attentively. The passage is an account of that purpose rather than a requirement that everyone withdraw to a forest.
Context reviewed
