12 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2023
  2. Jul 2019
    1. this latitude; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and stren

      Gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins in Catholicism, is the over-indulgence and over-consumption of food for fun or as "a status symbol" (Wikipedia). In this statement, Thoreau is stating that a man's diet can be simple and he can still be healthy and strong. This statement reminded me of gluttony, because I feel like today people over-eat for luxury or because they can, when really, our diet can be "as the animals."

      Wikipedia Contributors. “Gluttony.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 May 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluttony.

    2. The wind that blowsIs all that any body

      This statement reminds me of the unpredictability of nature and of life. We cannot predict what life will bring and we certainly are not all-knowing. Therefore, as Thoreau says, "the wind that blows is all that any body knows."

    3. It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd so

      This is very true. Celebrities are huge trend-setters and with social media, their influence is more powerful. Why are people so quick to jump on the trends and follow them so diligently? Why do we try to be like the "luxurious and dissipated" and give them authority to influence? Overindulgence does not lead to more happiness. In the end, the rich and poor have the same fate. We do not carry our riches to the grave.

    4. o anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if pos

      It is interesting this paragraph truly gives nature a persona, describing very complexly a simple topic about anticipations.

    5. for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do

      When I read this sentence, I quickly related it as being directly opposed to the infamous quote by Hippocrates, "Desperate times call for desperate measures." I think Thoreau is trying to convey that with wisdom, desperation is not an option, so "desperate times" do NOT "call for desperate measures", and adversity is clearly not be an excuse for lacking in wisdom and good judgement.

      https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/phrases/desperate-times-call-for-desperate-measures/#.XTTyNVNKjVo

    6. Finding that my fellow-citizens were not likely to offer me any room in the court house, or any curacy or living any where else, but I

      This sounds to me like he wasn't very successful at the time he decided to go into the woods, and maybe feeling like he was tossed aside, maybe even a little bitter, and therefore ready to get away from society. Sounds like a typical case of stress.

    7. discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them.

      He is speaking of people who are unhappy, yet do nothing to make themselves happy, and still have to audacity to gripe about it

    8. eds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or

      This one is so true and timeless. All that really matters is what we think of ourselves and that ultimately makes us who we are.

    9. of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one anot

      I felt this to be a very powerful sentence. He's asking why we put so much stock and care into material things instead of each other, and our world.

    10. Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by the

      I feel that Thoreau is saying that a lot of people just "fall in line' in everyday life, and do what is expected of them, that they can't really enjoy or even entertain a different way of life and they don't even know what they are missing.