David Thoreau's Life And Accomplishments

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…to suck the marrow out of life…and not when I came to die, discover that I have not lived.” Thoreau, Walden. Thoreau was not just a radical yet respected thinker for his time, but now as well. Thoreau has a very important lesson and idea to teach through the workings of a pen. Thoreau’s works have greatly influenced our culture for over a hundred years. Thoreau’s ideas have definitely influenced contemporary ideas, but we have also developed our own separate ideas in the past century and a half.

“What you get by achieving goals is not as important as what you become by achieving goals.” Quote, Henry David Thoreau. An accomplishment is just another definition of a goal. They may take a long time to complete; however, just have faith and great things can come from it. Just like how Columbus never gave up to find the new world, even though he always thought that the world was flat. The world has always been a place of innovation and discovery. One of the many personal accomplishments I would like to have is to travel and learn about the world.

Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12th, in Concord Massachusetts. Thoreau was many things, not simply just a writer; but he was one of the most influential writers America knows today. Early on in his life he grew up in a simple home with hard-working parents, and an abundance of siblings. His father and mother both had worked as teachers as well as investing in many other trades to get by. Henry started developing his talent for writing early on, by age ten he had written his first piece of writing, “The Seasons,” as well as many other academic achievements for somebody his age. He was articulate and mature beyond his years, these things developed into key traits that brought him to, instead of listening in on lectures at the Concord Lyceum- being the one leading the lectures in the later years of his life. He came back to Concord after graduating from Harvard University, starting to work at a public school he’d attended as a child. He was a man with morals; known to look at things in a more progressive way than many in his life. After being asked to conduct corporal punishment on a student he left the school he was teaching at to expand his studies and find further employment. His talents broadened further than essays and poetry, he gave himself away to a life of helping others, sheltering runaway slaves on their journey to freedom. He was a man of nature, not as much an adventurer, but he took two years to emerge himself into the depths of nature and not

In that same realm, Thoreau keeps a distance with the reader and speaks with a 'holier than thou' air. He is consumed with his experiences and idolizes himself because he allows no respect for the rest of society. He treats himself as royalty in that no other individual could compare to his triumphs. "Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be any thing but a machine." (p. 1809) He is denouncing the average working man and offending the majority of humanity.

Henry David Thoreau, a name heard endlessly by American Literature students, has contributed his outrageous views to society even after his death. Lectures and texts let his perceptions live on through teachers and professors that are all agreed on the significance of his writing to the transcendentalistic period. Definitely worth the merit he receives for his contributions, Henry Thoreau's views are nonconformist and thought provoking. "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away" (Thoreau, 14). Thoreau himself marched to a different drummer, and it is this aspect of all great men that

Thoreau characterizes life in New England as tough especially for immigrants, who are exploited for cheap labor. It is also a struggle for many people who live every day as they are expected to, but still do not find happiness, as seen through his example of the son who inherited his family’s farm but has no personal inclination to be farmer. Society is setting boundaries for what is accepted as good behavior and what is not, plus, there is an abundance of basic necessities beyond the required food and shelter. As a result, he simplified his life. When Thoreau says that “men remain in their present low and primitive condition…” in his comparison to people and a thawing snake, he is noting how society as he observes is filled with people who follow and conform instead of following their own instincts and principles. Applied today, places like North Korea show an extreme dictatorship where the government firmly establishes the norms of society and forces the expectations of the regime into its citizens. Propaganda is seen everywhere and even though the people conform to society’s will and are told to be happy, there is without a doubt people in North Korea who are suffering under the strict regime and are not satisfied with the restrictive and conformist lifestyle.

"Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn," (Thoreau, 1849, Part 2, Section 5). Henry David Thoreau embodied the values he espoused in his essay "Civil Disobedience." One of the most meaningful ways Thoreau helped to promote the idea that being a counter friction can "stop the machine" was by his writing. Thoreau used his writing to promote social justice, thereby refusing to "lend himself to the wrong" he so disparages. Slavery was one of those wrongs: a facet of the system of government that was so corrupt and yet completely entrenched in American society. Thoreau also acted as a counter friction to the machine of mindless government by extricating himself from the situations he found most distasteful. His experiences living close to nature at Walden Pond prove that Thoreau was sincerely dedicated to being the change that he advocated in his life.

Henry David Thoreau was a very wise man, who knew that not everything in life was of utmost importance. Thoreau believed in the idea of simplicity. He knew that not everything need to be extravagant and luxurious. Society today and in Thoreau world, as well as his works of writing help prove that simplicity is best. We can pick up a lot by reading the wise words of Thoreau.

By the year 1840 the concept of Independence had been forever embedded in American tradition and American government. The value of freedom had yet to be accepted nor granted peacefully. The Revolution released America from the grasp of Britain and it would take yet another war to release the black man from the shackles of slavery. America was still in its infancy; the West was not yet settled, the South was still a confederacy and unity was just a dream. The country was torn by slavery. And some men began to question the integrity of their government. Henry David Thoreau was one such man.

In Walden, he questions the lifestyles that people choose. He makes his readers wonder if they have been chosen the kind of life that will really offer them happiness. Are they merely living a career or some other narrowly routine or is a worthwhile life being lived. Thoreau wonders if the truly valuable elements of life are being taken advantage of if a person is not living simply. If a person is so caught up in working or never having enough in life, one wonders, and satisfaction are difficult to obtain. As he states in the beginning Walden, "most men, even in this comparatively free country, though mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that is finer fruits cannot be plucked by them" (Thoreau 6). This means that people care more about the finer things in life and easier work instead of nature's gifts and hard work. Thoreau draws a parallel between others preoccupation with money and his own enjoyment of non-monetary wealth.

Henry David Thoreau was a man of many things, a writer, philosopher, carpenter and a pencil maker. He left his home where he lived with his parent and siblings to live alone in a cabin he built near the Walden Pond. While living in the cabin he wrote the book The Walden and learned about life through nature. After leaving his cabin he stayed with his friend, mentor and at time enemy Ralph Emerson. While at the Emerson he tutored his children, worked in the garden and did carpentered work.

The world of Thoreau is the world of nature around us. Live around the trees, the clean fresh air, the sound of the river, and the birds singing. This is exactly what Thoreau talks in Walden Pond for example. Walden Pond is about nature, but it's not just about nature; it's also about man's relationship with nature as he saw in the world around him. In Walden, Thoreau wants to prove that anybody can live simple and easy and still enjoy life. Enjoy the nature around us without being consumed by things like debt and other problems that associate with life.

Henry David Thoreau was born in mid July of 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts. Henry’s family was rather modest and his father was employed as a pencil maker. Henry David Thoreau was born with a legal name David Henry Thoreau, in memory of his recently deceased uncle, David Thoreau. Although Henry never legally petitioned to change his name, he began referring to himself as Henry after he had finished college.

Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12, 1817. He lived in a farm house with his mother, Cynthia, his father , John and his three siblings, Helen, John and Sophia. Thoreau along with his brother John attended a grammar school in Concord before entering in concord academy in 1828. When he was not in school, Thoreau enjoyed being outside, taking long walks in the woods and exploring nature. Besides loving nature, he also had an aptitude for construction and mechanics. When Thoreau graduated at Concord Academy in 1833, He decided to attend Harvard University endorsed by his mom. With financial support of his entire family, including his ants and siblings they could afford the tuition which was $179 by the time with room

In reading Thoreau quote, “they become like machine ….. leading lives of quiet desperation” is consider to be an example of an ineffective skill that a hopeless person adapts with no conventional reasoning. They evade the responsibility to create a change. Thoreau had an opportunity to observe the community and renowned himself as a transformational leader.