Near the end of March 1845

 Yes, Henry David Thoreau wrote this in the 

first chapter ("Economy") of Walden (1854)

The mass of men lead lives

of quiet desperation. . .

It is never too late to give up

our prejudices. . .

What everybody echoes or in

silence passes by as true today

may turn out to be falsehood 

tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion. . .

We might try our lives by a thousand

simple tests; as, for instance, that

the same sun which ripens my beans

illumines at once a system of earths

like ours. . .Nature is as well adapted

to our weakness as to our strength.

My purpose in going to Walden Pond

was not to live cheaply nor to live

dearly there, but to transact some

private business with the fewest 

obstacles. . .Near the end of March

1845 I borrowed [from Emerson /

Alcott / Channing] an axe and went

down to the woods by Walden Pond,

nearest to where I intended to build

my house. . . I heard the lark and pewee

and other birds already come to

commence another year with us.  They

were pleasant spring days, in which

the winter of man's discontent 

[Richard III, Act I, Scene i] was thawing

as well as the earth, and the life

that had laid torpid began to stretch

itself.