Status Updates From Reflections at Walden

“When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty or slaves, and a whole country, is unjustly, overrun, and conquered by a foreign army and subjected to military law I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize”

so that all may see has originality, though he should never get above board — and great inventors, you know, commonly die poor — I shall think him comparatively successful

If a man has spent all his days about some business, by which he is merely got to be rich, as it is called, i.e., has got much money, many houses and barns and woodlots, then his life has been a failure, I think; but if he has been trying to better his condition in a higher sense than this, has been trying to invent something, to be somebody — i.e. to invent and get a patent for himself —

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success, unexpected in common hours.”

“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!”
“Instead of nobleman, let us have Noble villages of men.”

This book opened with an essay from Ralph Felder Emerson about Henry David Thoreau, which said something unusual about his Saxon bloodline, as well as the fact that he never married, and was very particular this made me wonder if he was perhaps gay and autistic as well

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation what is called resignation, is confirmed desperation.”
“I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary”

Interesting quotes: “ I did not teach for the good of my fellow men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure.”
“ When formally, I was looking about to see what I could do for a living, some sad experience and conformity to the wishes of friends, being fresh in my mind to tax, my ingenuity, I thought, often and seriously of picking huckleberries”