My Life Has Been the Poem
by Henry David Thoreau
My Life Has Been the Poem (1849) is Thoreau's most quoted couplet — a two-line distillation of his belief that authentic living is the highest art. "My life has been the poem I would have writ, / But I could not both live and utter it."
My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it.