Thoreau writes in his journal to prepare a lecture at the Concord Lyceum on 11 April.
Every proverb in the newspapers originally stood for a truth. Thus the proverb that man was made for society, so long as it was not allowed to conflict with another important truth, deceived no one; but, now that the same words have come to stand for another thing, it maybe for a lie, we are obliged, in order to preserve its significance, to write it anew, so that properly it will read, Society was made for man . . .
Let not society be the element in which you swim, or are tossed about at the mercy of the waves, but be rather a strip of firm land running out into the sea, whose base is daily washed by the tide, but whose summit only the spring tide can reach . . .