Walden Technology and Modernization Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Essay.Paragraph)

Quote #4

If one may judge who rarely looks into the newspapers, nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a French Revolution not excepted. (Where I Lived.19)

Thoreau often exaggerates, as he does here when he describes the French Revolution as a non-event. We'd say radical changes in European politics and the loss of thousands of lives qualifies as an event.

Quote #5

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. (Where I Lived.23)

Thoreau's sense of time is attuned to nature, where the pace is much slower, and more human.

Quote #6

The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village day. They go and come with such regularity and precision, and their whistles can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and thus one well conducted institution regulates a whole country. (Sounds.10)

The railroad is so all-pervasive that it has even corrupted our sense of time. Can you think of any, even more modern inventions that have played with our sense of time?