“it is true, i never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but doubt not, it was of the last...

“It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but doubt not, it was of the last importance

only to be present at it.”

“My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to

live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private

business with the fewest obstacles.”

House, $28 12 1⁄2Farm one year, 14 72 1⁄2Food eight months, 8 74Clothing &c., eight months, 8 40 3⁄4Oil, &c., eight months, 2 00 In all, $61 99 3⁄4

(replica of Thoreau’s cabin)

(the interior)

“. . . it costs me nothing for curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that they should look in.”

(Thoreau statue in front of

cabin replica)

“. . . the swiftest man is he who goes afoot.”

“I found myself suddenly neighbor to

the birds; not by having imprisoned

one, but having caged myself near

them.”

“So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to hear what was in the

wind, to hear and carry it express!”

“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.”

“The mass of men lead lives

of quiet desperation.”

(first edition of Walden)

“If, then, we would indeed restore

mankind . . ., let us first be as simple and

well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang

over our own brows, and take up a little life

into our pores.”

(frontispiece of first edition of Walden)

My feet in Walden Pond

Henry Thoreau’s gravestone

Boating on the Concord River

One of many stone bridges that cross the Concord.

“I have passed down the river before sunrise on a summer morning, between fields of lilies still shut in sleep; and when, at length, the flakes of sunlight from over the bank fell on the surface of the water, whole fields of white blossoms seemed to flash open before me . . . Like the unfolding of a banner, so sensible is this flower to the influence of the sun’s rays.”

The Old North Bridge

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stoodAnd fired the shot heard round the world.”

from “The Concord Hymn” Ralph Waldo Emerson