"Philosophy of Thoreau"
"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away" (Thoreau 345). In Walden, Henry David Thoreau bases his philosophy of the true meaning of life on the importance of self-reliance to gain self-fulfillment, the value of simplicity for freedom, and the illusion of progress.
In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them" (343).
…
