Bill Clinton: “To me they mean two things. First, when I was very young and was first exposed to Thoreau's writings, he crystallized…”

“To me they mean two things. First, when I was very young and was first exposed to Thoreau's writings, he crystallized the feelings that I had when I was in nature and awakened in me a sense of profound obligation to respect and to preserve the natural environment. The second thing that impressed me about Thoreau from the very beginning is how much he learned about himself and about human nature and society by living apart from it for a while, how much, in effect, he learned about life by being a solitary person living alone for an extended period of time. It made a huge impression on me because most people wouldn't think that you could learn that much about life living alone. But when I saw what he wrote about solitude, for example, he persuaded me that you could learn quite a lot. [At this point, musician Don Henley, founder of the institute, responded that Thoreau had helped him discover spirituality in nature, as well as a sense of place. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she also appreciated Thoreau's emphasis on the importance of nature, calling him one of the founding fathers of the Nation's environmental movement. Russian students at the Municipal Children's Ecological Center in St. Petersburg, Russia, who participated by live video hookup, then presented Mrs. Clinton with a copy of an artwork they had previously presented to the Thoreau Institute.] Environmental Issues Education”