What is the message that wild animals bring, the message that seems to say everything and nothing? What is this message that is wordless, that is nothing more or less than the animals themselves- that the world is wild, that life is unpredictable in its goodness and its danger, that the world is larger than your imagination. Rebecca Solnit
About This Quote

In these words, Thoreau is giving a more literal version of the poem “The Wild Swans” by Yeats. He uses the animals as a metaphor for life and how we should be more accepting of it. The animals we see on our farms and in our cages are just as wild and unpredictable as the animals we see in the wilderness. Just as we cannot control the wild animals, we cannot control life.

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