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Meaning
This reads as a warning about projection. The wilderness is not really full of noise and menace, the traveler’s mind supplies it, so the line points to how fear and expectation can shape a place more than the place itself. It lands when someone arrives in an unfamiliar setting already braced for trouble, and suddenly everything seems harsher than it is.
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Originally said in English.
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About Henry David Thoreau
American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher
Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. He is closely associated with the transcendentalist movement and is best known for Walden and for his essay "Civil Disobedience". Walden reflects on simple living in natural surroundings. "Civil Disobedience" argues that citizens may resist an unjust state. Thoreau's writing often returns to independence, conscience, and a close attention to nature.
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More Wilderness quotes
- “My whole interest in food grew from my interest in gardens and the question of how we engage with the natural…”Michael Pollan
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Explore Imagination
- “I don't know if I am a good, average, or bad writer, but I write fast. Everything I observe, my experiences a…”Dhanush
- “I think more influential than Emily Dickinson or Coleridge or Wordsworth on my imagination were Warner Brothe…”Billy Collins
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READ THE SOURCE
Books by Henry David Thoreau
Walden
On living deliberately.