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 practice 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 drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
We do not commonly live our life out and full; we do not fill all our pores with our blood; we do not inspire and expire fully and entirely enough, so that the wave, the comber, of each inspiration shall break upon our extremest shores, rolling till it meets the sand which bounds us, and the sound of the surf comes back to us.
Employ your senses. Will you live? Or will you be embalmed? Will you live, though it be astride of a sunbeam; or will you repose safely in the catacombs for a thousand years? The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success — the ability to do some slight thing better. I have not yet learned to live, that I can see, and I fear that I shall not very soon.
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, and find your eternity in each moment. We do not live by justice, but by grace.
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