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Thoreau: "Our Life Is Frittered Away By Detail" - Online Term Paper

Thoreau: "Our Life Is Frittered Away By Detail"

The battle was raging. The two races were pitted against each other in a fight to the death. The ground was already littered with the wounded and dying. One pair was locked together as they tumbled over and over. Both were relentlessly hanging on until one or the other would die. As Henry David Thoreau watched this battle between Red and Black Ants, he thought about life. Henry David Thoreau grew up in Concord, Massachusetts in the mid 1800's. When he was about sixteen he went to Harvard for his college education. Despite his Harvard degree, he was considered an outcast because he didn't do anything "useful" with his life. He wasn't interested in making a living in society. He ...

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detail, instead of being concerned with the big picture. The important thing to Thoreau was having time to think about how man fits in with nature and what his place on earth is. Thoreau believed that man only needed the basics of food, clothing and shelter. Everything else was a luxury that took time to obtain. Thoreau thought that time spent getting anymore than the basics was not time well spent.
Thoreau couldn't understand why people in his time would waste energy on things that could become very stressful. For example, the railroads and telegraphs were crisscrossing Concord. They brought commerce, but they also brought noise and pollution, and cut up the landscape. There were more goods for people to buy, but they were unnecessary frills in Thoreau's mind. Thoreau wished for a simple life, unfettered by material possessions.
Thoreau's quotation is applicable in today's life more than ever. The appearance of railroads and commerce in Thoreau's time was the start of ...

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Thoreau: "Our Life Is Frittered Away By Detail". (2008, November 29). Retrieved May 5, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Thoreau-Our-Life-Frittered-Away-Detail/93867

"Thoreau: "Our Life Is Frittered Away By Detail"." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 29 Nov. 2008. Web. 5 May. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Thoreau-Our-Life-Frittered-Away-Detail/93867>

"Thoreau: "Our Life Is Frittered Away By Detail"." Essayworld.com. November 29, 2008. Accessed May 5, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Thoreau-Our-Life-Frittered-Away-Detail/93867.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 11/29/2008 10:04:28 PM
Category: English
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 580
Pages: 3

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