Jeremy Keeshin

Walden – Henry David Thoreau

Thesis: Humans should learn from nature and its deliberate cycle of changes, and they
should apply that to their lives by never getting too hung up on a minor detail.

Where I Lived and What I Lived For:

Morning is the most important time of day (240).
People are too sleepy to do things efficiently (241).
Nature has an inherent simplicity and innocence (240, 241).
People get lost in the superfluous details of their own life (241).
No important communication comes through the mail (242).

Solitude:
The intellect is more useful than the hands or feet (243).
Loneliness is only relative (244).
Comparatively, the distance between points in the Milky Way makes this distance
seem small.

The Ponds:
The pond seems perfect and pure as it is clear and seems to be bottomless (244).

Brute Neighbors:
The toughness and will to fight in armies of ants dwarfs that of humans (245).
Ants continue fighting to the bitter end, even as they are being torn apart.
Nature’s battles are more fierce and patriotic (245).
Ants fight with a sense of pride inherent to nature.

The Pond in Winter:

When everything in nature seems to be covered in snow and ice and peacefulness, the
humans proceed to disrupt the peace by sawing away the ice (246).

Spring:
Nature slowly changes from cold and frozen and dead to beautiful and warm and alive
(247).
There is a stark contrast between the darkness of winter and light of spring (247).

Conclusion:
Success is found in the pursuit of dreams (248).
One should not waste his entire life focused on too small a search, for there is more out
there in the world (248).
Humans move too quickly and rush through things for no good reason (248).
A person must keep their thoughts, for they can never be taken away (248).