Henry David Thoreau · A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”
| Source | Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) |
| Date | 1849 |
| Wording | Exact |
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About This Line
The line is buried in Thoreau’s first book, which sold so badly he carted the unsold copies home himself — later joking he had a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, most of them his own. His sharpest thought about imagination almost disappeared with it.
Why We Carry This Line
He buried his sharpest line about imagination in a book nobody bought. I like rescuing the ones that got away.
Objects Carrying This Line
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