How we cite our quotes: (Essay.Paragraph)
Quote #1
[Man] has no time to be anything but a machine. (Economy.6)
Technology has a way of dehumanizing the people who use it. Thoreau would probably say that nature, on the other hand, makes us more human.
Quote #2
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. (Economy.72)
What would Thoreau have made of the pretty toys we call iPhones?
Quote #3
Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. (Where I Lived.17)
Thoreau questions our priorities. Should we really be spending our lives trying to ride a zippy at thirty miles an hour, or should we instead turn to the real tough questions about life?
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?
Quote #7
[T]he villagers, who scarcely know where it lies, instead of going to the pond to bathe or drink, are thinking to bring its water, which should be as sacred as the Ganges at least, to the village in a pipe, to wash their dishes with! – to earn their Walden by the turning of a cock or drawing of a plug! That devilish Iron Horse […] has mudded the Boiling Spring with his foot (Ponds.25)
With modernization, villagers are also losing touch with nature. Without working with nature using our own bare hands, we can't truly have a deep understanding of it – hands-on learning at its best.
Quote #8
In October I went a-graping to the river meadows […] by the first of September, I had seen two or three maples turned scarlet […] The wasps came by thousands to my lodge in October (House-Warming.1-3)
Thoreau often makes a note of seasonal changes in the area. There's nothing like a New England fall, that's for sure.
Quote #9
One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have the leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in. (Spring.3)
Free of technology, Thoreau can really slow down and appreciate nature.
Quote #10
As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him. (Conclusion.11)
The artist of Kouroo described in this quote has completely transcended time simply by devoting himself to the craft of something perfect – here, a simple staff. There's a psychological term for what happened to him, called flow. It's when you're completely enveloped in something (anything from driving to writing to good conversation) that you completely lose yourself in the moment. We've all felt