 | Henry David Thoreau: WaldenEmpire Books In 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a cabin by Walden Pond. With the intention of immersing himself in nature and distancing himself from the distractions of social life, Thoreau sustained his retreat for just over two years. More popular than ever, Walden is a paean to the virtues of simplicity and self-sufficiency. |
If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we need never read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.
Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other`s eyes for an instant?
Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man`s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring.
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are.
A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.
With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers.
Chapter 3
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs.
Chapter 10
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him keep step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
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