Henry David Thoreau was a mid-nineteenth century author, poet, philosopher and transcendentalist. His most famous book, Walden, was a reflection on simple living in natural surroundings. What I like about Thoreau is that he was a minimalist and found joy in a simple life.
In this time period of economic challenges, the idea of enjoying simplicity sounds like a good idea. Simplicity doesn't mean settling for less. Instead it is focussing on what is most important and letting go of other things that only clutter our lives. Thoreau encouraged his readers to live life to the fullest.
The line I love from Thoreau in the passage below is"
"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life"
Enjoy Thoreau's beautiful words below and consider what you could do today to "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life?"
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 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, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"[36]
