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Furthermore, it is noteworthy that many of the views espoused by Thoreau within his works of literature were regarded with as much condescension, and perhaps outright disdain, as he seemingly regarded those pursuing the gold rush in the preceding quotation. For instance, it is known that of the 1,000 original copies that the author published of alden, he was only able to sell approximately a third of it. To a certain extent, his commercial misgivings can be attributed to the lifestyle he advocated in that manuscript and in other works of literature such as "Life ithout Principle." The following quotation from Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was a contemporary of Thoreau, illustrates the most common regard for the author and his views on living and the simplicity he embraced with nature. Hawthorne claimed that Thoreau "repudiated all regular modes of getting a living, and seems inclined to lead a sort of Indian…...

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Works Cited

Cheever, Susan. American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work. Detroit: Thorndike Press. 2006. Print.

Thoreau, Henry David. "Life Without Principle." The Thoreau Reader. 1854. Web. http://thoreau.eserver.org/lifewout.html

Borst, Raymond. The Thoreau Log: A Documentary Life of Henry David Thoreau, 1817 -- 1862. New York: G.K. Hall. 1992. Print.

Henry David Thoreau did not live a long life, however, he is perhaps America's most famous and beloved philosopher, rebel, and environmentalist. In 1846, he protested against slavery and the Mexican ar by not paying his taxes and spent a night in jail (Thoreau pg). Thoreau said, He said, "It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey" (Henry pg). His essay "Civil Disobedience" has influenced countless great men, including Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Although, he was regarded as a nature writer, "he declined membership in a scientific society, saying he was, 'a mystic, a transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher to boot'" (Thoreau pg). He died before completing the "Kalender," a book he was writing based from his vast collection of Indian data that would be "a total, all comprehending picture of life" (Thoreau pg). During…...

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Works Cited

Henry David Thoreau: 1817-1862." Ecology Hall of Fame.   10-29-2002).http://www.ecotopia.org/ehof/thoreau/bio.html .(accessed

Pritchard, William H. "Myriad Thoreaus sparkle and glimmer in his collected works."

The Washington Times. May 06, 2001; pp B8. 10-29-2002).http://ask.elibrary.com/getdoc.asp?pubname=The_Washington_Times&puburl=http~C~~S~~S~www.washtimes.com&querydocid=:bigchalk:U.S.;Lib&dtype=0~0&dinst=0&author=William+H%2E++Pritchard&title=Myriad+Thoreaus+sparkle+and+glimmer+in+his+collected+works++&date=05%2D06%2D2001&query=henry+david+thoreau&maxdoc=30&idx=14.(accessed

Thoreau, Henry David." History Channel.Com.   10-29-2002).http://www.historychannel.com/cgi-bin/frameit.cgi?p=http%3A//www.historychannel.com/perl/print_book.pl%3FID%3D35749 .(accessed

Henry David Thoreau left us two most important options when things go very bad in this world: a bloodless but effective way of saying "no" and a fitting advice to rely on ourselves. He did this through his famous works, "Civil Disobedience" and "Walden."
Civil Disobedience" is about showing protest by resisting the orders of the authority being opposed. When authority conflicts with one's true values, the person has the right and duty to defend his or her conscience, and open rebellion does not have to be bloody. Thoreau advises what he himself practiced: that of refusing to obey the law, which he finds unacceptable and unjust:

Law never made men a whit more just and by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice."

Essay on "Civil Disobedience") as he did when he preferred imprisonment to supporting the Mexican Way by paying his poll…...

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Bibliography

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Ecology Hall of Fame: Thoreau, an essay, updated)

Lenat, Richard. Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience." Thoreau Reader, 2002

MSN Encarta. About Henry David Thoreau. Encyclopedia 2000:

Microsoft Corporation, 1999

Thoreau Simplicity
Henry David Thoreau was a prophet who understood that the materialism of the modern world would lead to a society that was impersonal and damaging to the world around it. He came to understand that the burgeoning materialism and consumerism of the 19th century would, in time, ultimately lead to a world that was plagued by possessions and damaging to the environment. As the world enters the 21st century, and people are consumed by their consumer products and the environment seems to be changing for the worse, Thoreau's predictions seem to be coming true. It is time that society as a whole begins to understand what Thoreau recognized more than a century ago, simplicity is a necessity.

If Henry David Thoreau thought that the 19th century was filled with the "clutter" that invaded a person's life and overwhelmed them with nonsense, he would be astonished to see how much "clutter"…...

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Works Cited

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. London: Bibliolis Books. 2010. Web. 26 Nov. 2012.

http://books.google.com/books?id=AwAbkjaAYsMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=

editions:Xjjuj-6BQIcC&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it (Civil Disobedience (http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/civil/)."
He believed that the government should respect and bow to the people that elected its officers. According to Thoreau dissent should take place by way of refusal to pay taxes as the taxes are what line the pockets of those who are elected by the people and then do not obey the wishes of those people.

Thoreau argues that until the government recognizes the power of the individual voter over its massive head, and acts accordingly, with respect, then people should stop paying taxes.

The philosophy of Thoreau in his Civil Disobedience work carries through to current political issues as well. People who are not happy with the elected officials in government believe that those elected officials need to realize that they work for those they are ignoring.

In addition, tax evasion for…...

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Works Cited

Civil Disobedience

 http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/civil

alking" written by author Henry David Thoreau, the writer discusses the importance of living in nature and the beauty of an untouched world. Some critics have labeled Thoreau as one of the world's first environmentalists. He and the other members of the transcendentalist school were inspired by the wilderness and featured aspects of the natural world in their published works (Bagley 1). This is because the emphasis of much of his writing, "alking" in particular, deals with the environment and the natural beauty that human beings take for granted and then abuse by destroying these places of nature and building structures and towns when the beauty should outweigh the human need.
hat Thoreau desires, according to some, is to impart the importance of the wild and the wilderness. Even in metropolitan areas there are still locations of wildness which have yet to be manhandled. People need to stop and appreciate…...

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Works Cited:

Bagley, S.H. "Man Thinking about Nature: The Evolution if the Poet's Form and Function in the Journal of Henry David Thoreau 1837-1852." Oberlin. 2006. Print.

Brulatour, Margaret. "Walking Study Text." American Transcendentalism Web. Virginia

Commonwealth. Feb. 2012. Web. 1999.  http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/walking/ 

Oelschlaeger, Max. "The Roots of Preservation: Emerson, Thoreau, and the Hudson River

Letter From a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr., and "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau. Specifically it will explain the reasoning of Thoreau's argument for civil disobedience and his general understanding of our obligation to law. Thoreau did not like too much government, or too many laws, and he felt people had a moral obligation to stand up to unjust laws, just as King did. Both men employed "creative protest" to get their message across to the public and gain support for their ideas and beliefs.
Thoreau believed in the ability of people to make their own decisions, not necessarily because of laws, but because of their own understanding of what is right and wrong. He wrote, "It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at…...

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References

King, Martin Luther Jr. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

Thoreau, Henry David. "Civil Disobedience."

Socrates and Thoreau are similar through the fact that both of them lobbied for a just world where slavery would not be present concomitantly with taking advantage of the institution of slavery. Socrates would thus identify with Thoreau, given that each of these two men lived in a time when their opinions were worthless when compared to those of the masses. Thoreau and Socrates were well aware that violence would be pointless in times when slavery was still considered to be normal by the majority. Socrates would however feel that Thoreau's perspective in regard to Brown's decision to use violence as a means to achieve justice is erroneous. This is because Socrates lived in a period when slavery was highly esteemed and when it was virtually impossible for someone to rise against the state with the purpose of abolishing it. In contrast, Thoreau, his abolitionist contemporaries, and society in general…...

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Plato. "The Apology of Socrates."

Thoreau, Henry David. (1859). "A Plea for Captain John Brown."

Thoreau, Henry David. (1854). "Slavery in Massachusetts."

Thoreau, Stowe, Melville and Douglas: Reflections on Slavery
Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Beacher Stowe, Herman Melville and Fredrick Douglass all opposed the intuition of slavery in the United States in the middle of the nineteen century. This matter deeply divided the nation and ultimately led to the Civil ar in 1860. hile southerner's saw the matter as a state's rights issue, abolitions framed the debate from a moral perspective. Most people in the south felt that slaves were their property, and it was for them to decide the moral and religious right of the slavery question. They saw the abolition of slavery as a threat to their very way of life. Abolitionists believed there was no distinction between slavery and liberty, a nation that condoned slavery could not be truly free (Foner). Each of these writers presented their views of slavery in there literary works.

Discussion

Henry David Thoreau

On the Duty of Civil…...

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Works Cited

Douglass, Fredrick. Douglass: Autobiographies. New York: Penguin Books, 1994. Print.

Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty, Vol. 2, 3rd Ed. New York W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print

Melville, Herman. "Benito Cereno." The American Short Story. Thomas K. Parkes (ed.). New York: Budget Books Inc., 1994. Print.

Stowe, Harriet Beacher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. New York: Random House, 2003. Print.

Thoreau's Resistance To Civil Government
This is a paper discussing the Henry David Thoreau's essay 'Resistance to Civil Government' and arguing that his ideas represent the extreme individualism and anarchist ideology.

The renowned American author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau is considered to be one of the most influential minds in the American thought and literature. Thoreau had not only great influence on American thought but also on the politics of the world, some of his ideas and concepts that he developed were the most original political doctrines devised by American thinker. We appreciate this more, considering the fact that he was an unconventional thinker. At the heart of Thoreau political philosophy was the concept of individualism, he was a supreme individualist and championed the human spirit against materialism and social conformity. His most famous book, "Walden" 1854 is an eloquent account of his experiment in near solitary living in close harmony…...

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Bibliography

Elizabeth Hall Witherell & Elizabeth Dubrulle, "The Life and Times of Henry D. Thoreau" 1999

http://www.niulib.niu.edu/thoreau/bexhibit.htm

Resistance to Civil Government, or Civil Disobedience - "Webtext" with detailed annotations and study notes by Jessica Gordon & Ann Woodlief at Virginia Commonwealth University, 1999

 http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/civil /

Thoreau Quiet Desperation
Hard ork has always been a virtue in American society, and some say it comes from the country's Puritan heritage. If so, it could explain a great deal about how hard work has become a form of self-imposed slavery. Puritan society was highly judgmental, and society's opinion of a person could become a form of slavery; if one attempts to always fulfill what others expect of them. Henry David Thoreau, in alden, discussed the kind of self-imposed slavery that one can become a victim to when they fall into the trap that society has created.

hen discussing slavery, Thoreau explores a more diverse definition of the word than simply a legal term, he discussed the nature of slavery and its impact upon a person's psyche. According to Thoreau, who wrote alden while slavery was still legal in some places, feels that while what he called "Negro Slavery" was wrong,…...

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Works Cited

Cain, William. A Historical Guide To Henry David Thoreau. New York:

Oxford UP. 2000. Print.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. London: Bibliolis Books. 2010. Web. 26 Nov. 2012.

http://books.google.com/books?id=AwAbkjaAYsMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=

Nowadays especially the influence of the media has become so invasive and widespread that all people seem to do is just discuss about whatever the media portrays the world as being. I also feel that the media has succeeded in "dumbing down" people's thoughts, so that they do not even bother discussing anymore about politics or current events unless they are forced to. Instead many people today occupy themselves frivolous news surrounding celebrity gossip and entertainment. If people took the initiative towards breaking away from these superficial thoughts in order to start thinking, questioning, and investigating what is really happening with their lives and with the world, it can then be said that we have become the rational thinkers that Thoreau yearned for in society. Then we would no longer be engaged in boring and meaningless gossip and instead we would have the ability to not passively accept what…...

Thoreau and Locke acknowledge the right of the people to renounce their allegiance to their government, what is the difference between their understandings of this right and what different conditions would warrant such an act?
When do citizens have the right to throw off the yoke of a sovereign and adopt a new form of governance that is more in keeping with the wishes and their needs of the majority of the populace? During the age of the Enlightenment in Great Britain, the philosopher John Locke wrote in his "Second Treatise of Governance," that all governments of the world must protect the life, liberty, and property rights of the common citizens. Locke wrote that if a government fails to honor this function, then its citizens had the right to revolt against the government, as the social contract between the governed and the government was not being honored. For example, if…...

Henry Thoreau and Ralph Emerson were two of the romantic American writers of the transcendentalist movement, which in essence stresses that less is more, that nature is to be studied, to be a true intellect you must read the classics and that living a life off the beaten path is more satisfying than one on the beaten path. Though Emerson began his writings first, Thoreau and Emerson are both credited with this movement. Emerson was clearly the founder of this initial movement, but Thoreau's writings were also critically acclaimed. The publishing of Thoreau's Civil Disobedience (1849) and alden (1854) followed the 1837 commencement speech of Emerson entitled "The American Scholar" and the 1841 essay "Self-Reliance." The similar views of these two men and their principles for living are seen throughout their respective works though it can be said that Thoreau applied Emerson's beliefs to his own.
"The American Scholar" was a…...

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While Emerson clearly began his works before Thoreau, Thoreau was heavily influenced by his writings and his lifestyle. Emerson stated principles about Nature being important, Literature being a guide and Self-Reliance being our judge and Thoreau carried these ideas out and wrote about them.

Thoreau, Henry. Walden; or Life in the Woods. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1995

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Texts   17 February 2002http://www.emersoncentral.com 

He centers on people's inability to act according to the dictates of their conscience, for the existence of laws and policies rendered society paralyzed and unable to think conscientiously about their actions -- that is, whether the actions they committed were conscientiously right or wrong. Asserting this point, he stated, "Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?... Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward." From this passage, Thoreau stressed the importance of civil society as the primary holder of power and control in the sovereign rather than the individuals who were supposedly given the function to represent civil society (i.e., political leaders and officials).
In "On the duty of civil…...