Thoreau about the dropout Thoreau: "I moved into the woods because I desired to live with reflection, to come closer to actual, real life, to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, lest, when it came to dying, I should find I had not lived. I did not want to live what was not life, life is so precious. Nor did I want to practice renunciation unless it became unavoidably necessary. I wanted to live deeply, to suck out all the marrow of life, to live so hard and spartanly that everything that was not life was put to flight." Gröls Classics - English Edition