I don't recall having ever read anything by Thoreau before, but in the course of my APUSH homework I read a short excerpt from something that he wrote.
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... I was struck to find that his words are, though much more eloquent and easily understood by the reader, similar in meaning to my own. It's a thought that's come to me many times and that I've occasionally talked about with others, and seeing that such an idea was published over a century ago is a little startling.
And now I find that he says, "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," I myself having used the phrase "quiet and desperate" to describe people only a few weeks ago! What is this...
posted on Monday, October 20, 2003
|
|
