Summary of Henry David Thoreau's Walden

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 I, Henry David Thoreau, lived alone in the woods for two years and two months. I now live a sojourner in civilized life again. I have been asked many questions about my lifestyle, and I will answer some of them in this book.

#2 I have traveled a lot, and I have seen how the citizens of Concord are doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. I have met many people who have inherited farms, houses, and cattle, and who are doing little else but work. They have no time to be angry.

#3 Men, even in America, are so busy with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that they cannot enjoy the finer fruits of life. Their fingers are too clumsy and they are too busy to handle them delicately.

#4 It is hard to have a southern overseer, and worse to have a northern one. However, it is worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Feb 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669348924

IRB Media

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Insights on Henry David Thoreau's Walden

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I, Henry David Thoreau, lived alone in the woods for two years and two months. I now live a sojourner in civilized life again. I have been asked many questions about my lifestyle, and I will answer some of them in this book.

#2

I have traveled a lot, and I have seen how the citizens of Concord are doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. I have met many people who have inherited farms, houses, and cattle, and who are doing little else but work. They have no time to be angry.

#3

Men, even in America, are so busy with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that they cannot enjoy the finer fruits of life. Their fingers are too clumsy and they are too busy to handle them delicately.

#4

It is hard to have a southern overseer, and worse to have a northern one. However, it is worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.

#5

When we consider what is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it seems as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. But they honestly believe that there is no choice left.

#6

We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests. For instance, the same sun that ripens my beans also illuminates a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this, it would have prevented some mistakes.

#7

The four necessities of life are food, shelter, clothing, and fuel. None of these can be obtained without the others. Food is the most important of the four, because it is what sustains us. Shelter and clothing retain our heat, and fuel is what keeps our bodies burning.

#8

The grand necessity for our bodies is to keep warm, and the best way to do that is to keep busy. The luxuries and comforts of life are not necessary, and in fact, they are quite possibly hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

#9

I would like to spend my life