“My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.”

— Henry David Thoreau

My Life Has Been a Poem I Would Have Writ
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Friday

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Henry David Thoreau 385

1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862

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Context: I dare say that quite a few people have contemplated death for reasons that much later seemed to them to be quite minor. If we are to live in a world where a socially acceptable "early death" can be allowed, it must be allowed as a result of careful consideration.
Let us consider me as a test case. As I have said, I would like to die peacefully with Thomas Tallis on my iPod before the disease takes me over and I hope that will not be for quite some time to come, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.