“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
Misquotation of a line from Walden cited above, with the addition of a spurious ending. For this and other misattributions, see: The Henry D. Thoreau Mis-Quotation Page http://www.walden.org/thoreau/mis-quotations/
Misattributed
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Henry David Thoreau 385
1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862Related quotes
“Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation.”
"The Grizzly and the Gadgets", The New Yorker (date unknown); Further Fables for Our Time (1956); This statement is derived from one of Henry David Thoreau: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
From Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time
“We are dead men. Dead men should be quiet in their graves, but they never are.”
Lews Therin Telamon
Winter's Heart (9 November 2000)
“Most people go to their grave with their music inside them.”
Source: Non-fiction, Created equal: Why gay rights matter to America (1994), p.53
Comment on establishing the University of Virginia, in a letter to Thomas Cooper (7 October 1814); published in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1905) edited by Andrew Adgate Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol VII, p. 200 http://books.google.com/books?id=jrSgJGp-B64C&pg=RA1-PA200&dq=%22A+professorship+of+theology+should+have+no+place+in+our+institution%22&ei=u65FR562EpqCpwLkk9XxBg
1810s
Context: I agree … that a professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution. But we cannot always do what is absolutely best. Those with whom we act, entertaining different views, have the power and the right of carrying them into practice. Truth advances, and error recedes step by step only; and to do to our fellow men the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we cannot, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step.
"Simon Hattenston talks to Robert Crumb" http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/mar/07/robertcrumb.comics, The Guardian, 7 March 2005.
“Mean songs are still better than going postal”
"Sweet As Whole"
Lyrics, Once Upon Another Time (2012)
