Henry David Thoreau on how to improve one’s morale

    Alcohol and drugs cannot improve one’s morale. Wilderness can! Hear Henry David Thoreau:

My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure air and solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The traveler Burton says of it: “Your morale improves; you become frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded. . . . In the desert, spirituous liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal existence.” They who have been traveling long on the steppes of Tartary say, “On re-entering cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity, and turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated us; the air seemed to fail us, and we felt every moment as if about to die of asphyxia." (Quoted from Henry David Thoreau’s essay, “Walking.”)

    To read “Walking,” click here. For a brief biography of Henry David Thoreau, click here.