Walden+by+Henry+David+Thoreau-Period+2

From Walden, by Henry David Thoreau (From http://www.transcendentalists.com/walden_conclusion.htm)

“…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. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. … Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand…”

Paraphrase & Transcendental Elements:

This passage suggests that people live a life marked by self- discipline, frugality, undaunted by pain or danger and avoidance of luxury and comfort. The author suggests that living a spartan lifestyle would break away from a complicated society and reduce our problems from many to a few. AD, AH, CB