Open Walden to any page and you will find a man saying in a plain and orderly way what is on his mind: 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 left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.

One should go to the woods for safety, if for nothing else.

In the woods, we return to reason and faith.

In the woods is perpetual youth. In the woods we return to faith and reason.

and into the forest I go,
to lose my mind
and find my soul

Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill.

I did not want to think about people. I wanted the trees, the scents and colors, the shifting shadows of the wood, which spoke a language I understood. I wished I could simply disappear in it, live like a bird or a fox through the winter, and leave the things I had glimpsed to resolve themselves without me.

But the beauty of the woods, the incredible joy of it is too alluring to be ignored, and I could not stand to be away from it — indeed, still can't — and so I ran dogs simply to run dogs; to be in and part of the forest, the woods

The wanting was a wilderness and I had to find my own way out of the woods.

To live intentionally, we must dig to the deepest why behind the want.

Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.

Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods. Here grow the wallflower and the violet. The squirrel will come and sit upon your knee, the logcock will wake you in the morning. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill. Of all the upness accessible to mortals, there is no upness comparable to the mountains.

Come to the woods, for here is rest.