Alissa Walker September 18, 2007

Henry David Thoreau quotes from Walden

“Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men…”

Thoreau believes that men pay too much attention to detail, that they should slow down their lives and attend to themselves. He believes that an honest man doesn’t need to learn about everything; that all one needs is to be honest and able to count their 10 fingers and toes. As a result, they will be successful in life.

“We do not ride the railroad; it rides upon us.”

Man doesn’t need the railroad if he is self-sufficient. It goes along with what Emerson says about being self-reliant. If we just used the things around us to fulfill our needs, then we wouldn’t need railroads to get the things that we want or do the things that we want to do. The railroad wouldn’t exist, if we didn’t need it.