Mr. Thoreau was born on this date in 1817 in a little hamlet known as Concord Massachusetts.  I still remember reading Walden for the very first time when I was in high school and how it struck a note with the gypsy spirit inside me.  Simplify.  It's a word I keep on a piece of paper taped to my computer here in the QPB offices.  Simplify.

One of my favorite quotes from the book.  Overused, yes, but it still strikes my heart:

"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." -- From Walden