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.
What was thoreau’s initial viewpoint?
