If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams…

The sentence comes from the Conclusion of Walden, in which Thoreau tells of the two years he spent in a cabin he had built by Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts. He has just explained why he left the woods: he had “several more lives to live”. Within a week, he notes, his feet had worn a path from his door to the pond; the mind, too, wears “ruts of tradition and conformity”. What his experiment taught him, he says, is this.

He goes on: whoever lives this way will pass “an invisible boundary”, and “In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex.” A few lines later: castles in the air are where they should be; “Now put the foundations under them.”

Thoreau lived at Walden from 1845 to 1847 and published the book in 1854. The sentence is often shortened to “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams”, which drops his stress on effort, simplicity and a success that comes unexpected.

Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Conclusion, 1854

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