The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation

In society, he wrote, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

One of his final posts, before he quit the taxi business, quoted Henry Thoreau - “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” - and detailed the story of a rich guy who’d ordered a taxi, then canceled it after Fasano had driven to the man’s house.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

As I grew older, though, I began to understand that Thoreau’s claim that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” was not social criticism but personal confession.

This comprehensive arrogance is captured in one of Thoreau’s most famous lines: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”