Along with Emerson and Whitman, this guy is the writer/philosopher/poet most in accord with my own weltanschuuang. All three are gloriously quotable. Here’s my top ten from Thoreau, in no particular order: 1. *The question is not what you look at, but what you see.* 2. *The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.* 3. *I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.* 4. *You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.* 5. *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 he hears, however measured or far away.* 6. *Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.* 7. *I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.* 8. *The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.* 9. *Things do not change; we change.* 10. *A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.* Like stars in the firmament, there are countless others, he is that quotable. Perhaps after all, this is my all-time favourite: *I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.* 🥸

Thoreau-ly enjoyed this video

I truly admire this man.

"I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now." interesting to see these people following his story, to which his whole point was not to follow anyone. Not even Him

Thoreau did not move to walden to escape society. He would often go visit friends and family. He did it to live 2 years under "Transcendentalist principles" where he put his and Emersons ideas to the test.

I picked up "Walden" at Goodwill yesterday and started reading it. How relevant it is even to this day. I love his use of words- calling pants 'pantalones' in Spanish it's the same, 'pantalones.' His brilliant mind covers even the small things. I'm left speechless and want to visit Walden Pond someday.

The most brilliant light this nation has ever produced.

I read Walden 12 years before,it's amazing biography that I have ever seen, I have read many times but it gives always a joy, rip Thoreau

Been there, have picture with me standing next to Thoreau statue. Cool guy, way ahead of his time. Love Walden and The Maine Woods. My favorite two books.

reading walden now :)

Wow, one of the earliest faircompanies videos! Love the content, even years later. Congrats!

gracias, gracias, gracias!

@MotherLodeBeth That's a great point. We've definitely grown our average home size in the U.S. Though I think Thoreau was different from his peers who- like his good friend Ralph Waldo Emerson- were living in nearby Concord, MA in very large homes.

The woods are lovely,dark and deep But I have promises to keep And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep . Frost

Maybe I got out.of the wrong side of the bed this morning, but "compartmentalizing" Henry David Thoreau is one of the attitudes this philosopher "went to the woods" to get away from. There is Thoreau the Environmentalist, Thoreau the political radical, author of Civil Disobedience; Thoreau the anti-social misanthropist; Thoreau the Nature nut and tree hugger. These impressions are NOT what I get out of Walden everytime I read it. He had no axe to grind and he wasn't trying to "convince" anybody of anything. First, those new to Walden are often surprised by how funny it is. So many common expressions we pull from it: March to a different drummer; did not want to come to the end of my life discovering I had not lived; most men lead lives of quiet desperation; better a live dog than a dead lion. Thoreau could have been the poster boy for the saying "less is more." Thoreau probably qualifies as our only original philosopher. I doubt anybody I can think of would agree with everything Thoreau writes in Walden. But from the Far Left to the Far Right, I have a a strong belief that anyone who READS the whole book-it will change some part of their outlook on life. How much do we really need? Do we take our ability to read and write we learn in compulsory schooling- do we DO anything with that literacy? Or do we read "junk" books as well as eat "junk" food. Do we read anything that might require, as Thoreau writes, to stand on tip-toe? Finally, if Thoreau we're alive today, he might go further than Walden Pond in Concord- he might go to the Arctic Circle in protest- if he were living in a world that dumped all the Ancient writers he so loved: Homer, Aeschylus, Plato, etc. From school curriculum has "having nothing to say to today's world." He would counter-- If these books have survived relatively intact for thousands of years- requiring constant re-writing.over the centuries, as the printing press only came into use around 1450. The problem isn't these banished books. The problem is Us.

I've been following this channel for 10 years now! I'm really happy with how it grow, but I can believe from the millions of views of comments this particular video has so little!

This was surprisingly well done. Good work! Loved reading Walden, very inspirational.

Thoreau was a real badass. 👍

He had a strong influence on John Muir.

landlords would try to lease an apartment that looks like that inside for $1500 a month and call it a "minimalist studio"

I love this place I use to go there all the time. I’d literally swim the entirety of the pond, catch snakes, and always stop by the cabin.

Great video. Thanks for posting!

This is so refreshing to know

God bless

Like the rest of us Thoreau was the product of, even victim of evolving human society. Some shine brighter than others, but all belong of the same fabric. Let's not forget that Native cultures have lived in appreciation and respect with their surroundings long before Thoreau came around, but we credit him more because he emerged from and is one of us.

Well done!

Wow Amazing 😍🤩😮 beautiful

Reading Walden now!

Too bad the original building could not have been saved/maintained, wouldn't that be something! No matter how they choose to pronounce his name, there is no mistaking that we are all talking about the same man, a very wonderful and enlightened man.

Love Thoreau and Walden. On another note, it absolutely irks me when people say "would have been" rather than simply saying was.

Simple is the best.

Not very well known,but he had a kick ass checkers gaming system at the cabin.

Actually a majority of people in his time lived in small places like this. Even in the 1800's in South Dakota (Little House on the Prarie) and the cabin here in the Sierras where Mark Twain lived in the 1800's, were the same size and style. Come west and you will still find small house society folks.

Please review the Glenn Murcutt's work in Australia, because in his work was strongly influenced by Thoreau's thoughts

2 years 2 months, and 2 days then he got into a rut. Some of us work the same job for 40 years

It’s crazy how In todays world it’s not possible to live a life like how he wanted to now it’s hard to escape from everything and move into a cabin in the woods

we journeyed to Walden Pond from Pennsylvania; paid 15 dollars to park only to be told that it's a Massachusetts state law than no pets can be on State property! they didn't want to refund my money until I said that I wasn't told about the pet policy! I offered to let my wife go to the pond while I watched the dog only to be told about no pets on State grounds. Pennsylvania is screwed up but it's my home and I love it and at least we don't have such stupid rules! and don't rip folks to park; our parks always have about half out of state cars so that ought to tell you something.

It's now $1200/month with first, last, and safety deposit.

Try building a cabin without a permit today and see what the state does.

Part of the reason he went was due to his brother's recent death from tetanus. Walden was part of his healing process.

I have long admired Thoreau's writings and I think it's superior to similar writings, like "The Outermost house," which came to be for essentially the same reason. His writings, for something written that long ago, could have been written today in its wording. But Thoreau only lived to be 44, never married or had children. So, at 75, there is a gap between our existences.

KZfaq just recommended me a 15-year-old Thoreauvian video.

Watching this because my history teacher told me to. Pretty cool dude lmao ngl.

Why no one had make a movie about him

Someone else who did alot for the wild places in this country is President Theodore Roosevelt.

Ikr it bothered me too

I wonder if it is even possible to live in a cabin that you built yourself like that today with all the codes and regulations that exist.

now thoreau is very actual, current (i dont know how in english you say)

My nickname 월든 means walden

Whats with the barbed wire fence along the trail?

Only here for my homework.

I don't think the host has read Walden

Here for my homework

Anyone else here for history HW?

No wild animal confronted him because he was invading their space and habitat?

video quality from 2009...

tiny house

And the world is turning into walden II

We are a world of consumers. We do nothing but consume. Movies aren't even artistic anymore, much less notable. Our food is almost entirely GMO. Our cars will totally destruct in a 25mph crash, our "durable goods (merchandise meant to last a lifetime) are falling apart in 5 yrs. or less. They build in obsolesce to force us to buy more & more often. 99% of people would go NUTS living like Thoreau did. No internet, no cellphone, no computer games, no social media, not text or emails. It would be a literal prison to them. We don't think, we consume. We don't reflect, we consume. We don't pray because Bill Gates, Geo. Clooney, Matt Damon & Britney are our gods. We have not forgotten how to relax like this, we have never known HOW to begin with!

so? 1 man builds a 1-room cottage in the bush-and the world is 'amazed' by it? IT SHOULD BE EVERY MAN thats feels the suns rays

Why does he say "THOR-O" like "Zorro?" I've genuinely never heard anyone pronounce it that way.

1 pixel camera

guess it would be easy to live 'simply' if one did not have to work to pay for the land his home sat on. There is a growing sense that Thoreau was lazy in life pursuits.

As a descendent of Europeans who mostly stayed in Europe even through difficult times I find it ironic that someone like Thoreau and modern romantics of a country that shamelessly appropriated land from native American indians who never thought of natural beauty as something that could be bought for one's own private use and exploitation now ponder the stupidity of selfish materialism when that is the very ethos of their country.

SO FUCKING HIGH!!!!!

Does it bother anyone else that he's pronouncing his name "Thorough"? I cringed every time!! 😁

Thoreau's simple life wouldn't have been quite so possible without women who cooked food for him, came and picked up his clothing and laundered it for him... people worked while he lived his "simple life."'

U don't need much to live well

Thank you for not mispronouncing his name.

This was before tick-borne diseases

I'm so glad KZfaq was invented so my teacher could assign videos to ruin my recommend feed also... @justin.Y wya

Peeping Tom

No, friend. No, it's not. If I must educate you, it's pronounced thuh-ROW. You're welcome.

he gives a very poor presentation...uz...hmmmm.need some one more suitable for guide,as he does not speak or pronounce Thoreau correctly.Nice man,wrong role.

He need to hound for food cut fire wood cook his own meal lot of work He want to be alone with his lover in those days wasn’t aloud to be gay That only my opinion sorry if I ofend you!

The cabin is a total sham, and Walden one of the most disappointing places ever.