Walden
Dialectical Journals
Section 1:
Quote Analysis
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. It sums up the visionary side of Thoreau; he was not just an experimenter living in isolation at Walden Pond, but also a deeply social and morally inspired writer with an important message for the masses. The message being the importance of self-reliance and the value of simplicity.
So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have not yet been received . . . were
House, $28 12 1/2
Farm one year, 14 72 1/2
Food eight months, 8 74
Clothing &c., eight months, 8 40 3/4
Oil, &c., eight months, 2 00
In all, $61 99 3/4 Thoreau is not a free spirit fleeing social realities; he is not really escaping the world of human values at all, but rather extending it. The point Thoreau is trying to make is the true inspiration of the spirit does not need to entail financial failure or misery, He defines his success in his Walden project not solely in terms of his own spiritual development but also in economic terms
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Thoreau wished to live a “simple” “free” life, in order to understand the importance of self-reliance and the values of simplicity. His experiment at Walden Pond was in simple terms to break away from the “slavery” of the “civilized” world
We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas; it may be, have nothing important to communicate…. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly.
Thoreau is really referring to the world, or the “civilized” world as a whole. Because we (the world) have so much power and
Section 1:
Quote Analysis
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. It sums up the visionary side of Thoreau; he was not just an experimenter living in isolation at Walden Pond, but also a deeply social and morally inspired writer with an important message for the masses. The message being the importance of self-reliance and the value of simplicity.
So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have not yet been received . . . were
House, $28 12 1/2
Farm one year, 14 72 1/2
Food eight months, 8 74
Clothing &c., eight months, 8 40 3/4
Oil, &c., eight months, 2 00
In all, $61 99 3/4 Thoreau is not a free spirit fleeing social realities; he is not really escaping the world of human values at all, but rather extending it. The point Thoreau is trying to make is the true inspiration of the spirit does not need to entail financial failure or misery, He defines his success in his Walden project not solely in terms of his own spiritual development but also in economic terms
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Thoreau wished to live a “simple” “free” life, in order to understand the importance of self-reliance and the values of simplicity. His experiment at Walden Pond was in simple terms to break away from the “slavery” of the “civilized” world
We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas; it may be, have nothing important to communicate…. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly.
Thoreau is really referring to the world, or the “civilized” world as a whole. Because we (the world) have so much power and