Thoreau Versus the Modern World: The Ultimate Conflict of

Influences

By Sabrina Shepherd

Unnecessary Influences: Insincerity

“I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.”

Necessary Influences: Sincerity

“I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.”

Unnecessary Influences: Rigidity “Society is commonly too cheap. We

meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that musty old cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the post office, and at the sociable, and at the fireside every night; we live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another.”

Necessary Influences: Flexibility

“Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that musty old cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the post office, and at the sociable, and at the fireside every night; we live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another.”

Unnecessary Influences: Extravagance

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”

Necessary Influences: Simplicity

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”

Unnecessary Influences: Not Living Up to Your Purpose in Life

“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...”

Necessary Influences: Getting the Most Out of Life That You Can

“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...”

Unnecessary Influences: Technology

“We do not ride on the railroad; it rides on us.”

Necessary Influences: Controlling Your Creations

“We do not ride on the railroad; it rides on us.”

Unnecessary Influences: Conformity

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”

Necessary Influences: Nonconformity

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”

Unnecessary Influences: Expansionism “Our life is like a German Confederacy,

made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land…”

Necessary Influences: Keeping Within One’s Boundaries and Supporting Frugality

“Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land…”

Unnecessary Influences: Being Unaware of the World

“To be awake is to be alive.”

Necessary Influences: Being Knowledgeable of the World

“To be awake is to be alive.”

Unnecessary Influences: Judging Someone by the Way They Look

“No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes…”

Necessary Influences: Reserving Judgment and Promoting Social Equality

“No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes…”

Unnecessary Influences: Distracting Oneself Through Travel

“It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.”

Necessary Influences: Changing One’s Soul Rather Than the Landscape

“It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.”

Unnecessary Influences: Belligerence and Longing for War

“Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist.”

Necessary Influences: Pacifism

“Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist.”

Unnecessary Influences: Not Learning as Much as You Can About Life “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called

resignation is confirmed desperation ... A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.“

Necessary Influences: Learning Everything Life Has to Teach

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation ... A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.”

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