In one of his most quoted observations, Thoreau remarked,
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Hoping to awaken people to the
heroic enterprise of marching to "the beat of a different drummer," Henry David Thoreau
encouraged people to act as individuals so that they would feel fulfilled and not live
desperate lives.
In Walden, for instance, Thoreau writes
that he went into the woods to live deliberately, and for that same reason he left the
woods. In his "Conclusion," Thoreau observes,
It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we
fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves....and so with the
paths which the mind
travels.
To simply try to
succeed can cost people their individuality, Thoreau tells his reader. Listen to the
"different drummer," Thoreau says, for any other reality will be "vain" and meaningless
to the individual. It is the spirit and soul of people that must be fulfilled for
existence to have meaning. People must make their own paths in life, choosing the
occupations that they love in both their public and private lives; else, their lives are
worthless and "desperate."
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