Henry David Thoreau - "Why I Went to the Woods"

This excerpt is from his famous essay, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience". First, some background; in 1842, his brother John died of lockjaw. Three years later, Henry decided to write a book commemorating a canoe trip he had taken with John in 1839. Seeking a quiet place to write, he followed a friend's suggestion and built a small cabin on the north shore of Walden Pond on a piece of land owned by his friend and …

…has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." To him, most men live lives of "quiet desperation," and have needed to simplify, to cast off material encumbrances and achieve true freedom. The stages of spiritual evolution that a man passes through all prepare him for the more difficult inner development; and every man, he believed, possesses an inner spiritual instinct which, if nurtured and cared for, will divulge his divine nature.