Walden

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1. Thoreau states that, “men labor under a mistake” and that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Thoreau in the first quote is saying that men work for all the wrong reasons. This statement carries great truth because Thoreau believe that we should work just so we have enough to survive. Thoreau does not want us to work to have these surplused luxuries that many do have. This statement contains truth because why should people work so hard to be able to pay to go on a luxurious vacation which they won’t even be able to enjoy because when they get back they are going to have to keep working again to pay for it. So many pick up all these extra hours on the job so they can pay for their family to go out to dinner, and have new cars all of which he implies are luxuries. In the second quote Thoreau is saying this to show the negatives in his perspective of how bad mainstream American lifestyle is. He is trying to explain that most men have really bad lives and are living really badly but don’t do anything or say anything about it. I think that this statement presented here does in fact contain some truth. So many men today are unhappy with their lives so all they do is find other things to take up their time like working more, or random hobbies in which they would do so they don't have to deal with their lives. All of these men are so upset with the way that their lives are struggling but just quietly let it go by. These quotes that Thoreau are saying both contain a lot of truth in them.

2. In Thoreau’s chapter “Economy” he states that the necessities of life are food, shelter, clothing, and fuel. In this passage he asserts that these necessities as something that we have the ability to receive from the land, and afte...

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...y they can not go to church, and create reasoning as to why religion is falsified and what they are teaching us is untrue. Thoreau quote from his passage really made me not only think about the modern day society but think about things in my own life, how week after week I say I have homework, i'm too tired, pretend to be sleeping all so I do not have to attend church. In the world today religion is slowly disintegrating from our lives, which Thoreau mentions, and he also is saying that Religion no longer has the meaning it did before. Nowadays in our society just as Thoreau mentions will pray then the next minute they’ll contradict themselves and go off and sin. This quote Thoreau wrote many years ago and its ability to still be truthful in modern times surprised me because of the idea that he could mention a topic with the same issues back then as there are today.

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