Walden Pond was one of Thoreau’s favorite spots in Concord, Massachusetts. Walden Pond is a symbol for self-exploration; it must answer human nature depth for depth. Even as a very young child, he could stand alone among the trees at Walden Pond and not feel lonely. The people around his small town referred to Thoreau as “nature’s own child” (Reef 21). Thoreau spent more time outdoors than in the small cabin he built by Walden Pond. Thoreau took long walks in the woods and fields around his town in Concord, Massachusetts.

While he was at Walden, Thoreau was alone quite often, but he was rarely lonely. Walden is a book about Thoreau’s experiences while living in the woods beside Walden Pond. Walden is not a long book, but it is filled with wonderful sentences that grab at your mind and stay in your ear (Burleigh 20). This book has helped many people think about and change their lives. Thoreau summed up his reasoning for living by Walden Pond by saying, “I went to

Thoreau liked teaching, but soon ran into trouble. He was told he must discipline his students with a ruler in order for them to listen to him. But that was not his way at all. He liked and respected children too much to hurt them. Thoreau and his brother started their own school in Concord and often took the students swimming or sailing on the river there. The writer from Concord taught people to value natural world for more than the lumber, metal, and other goods that it could provide (Reef 12). Thoreau came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. Thoreau’s words have prompted many people to work to protect the environment, or other natural surroundings. They have inspired writers and artists to choose nature as their subjects.

He was always finding small insignificant, out of the way things to excite him, or call forth a memorable phrase. Thoreau believed that he had an advantage in his life over those people who were obligated to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theater, that in his life it became his amusement that never ceased to end. He wanted to prove something to himself and to the other people, too. He wanted to show that someone could live very, very simply. New clothes were not very important to him either. “Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts” (Burleigh 18).

Most of the time, Thoreau did indeed live simply. He ate potatoes and corn that he raised, traded beans for sugar and rice, and He often dined on the fish he caught and wild plants he found. Thoreau lived his ideals in his own way. Thoreau considered himself rich, not in money, but in sunny days, and he spent them lavishly Thoreau did not care that he did not waste more of the sunny days in the workshop or the teachers desk.

Thoreau’s philosophy is we cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell beauty and strength as we can a flower or a rock. But by being close to nature, we can get a hint of the spirit that transcends material things. All we have to do is get away from useless, routine activities, go outdoors, and listen to nature as it speaks to us (Ring 25). Walden and Thoreau’s other writings have made people see nature in new ways that they never saw before. Nature, Thoreau explained, brought peace of mind and encouraged people to think for themselves (Reef 12). “We can never have enough of nature,” he wrote, “The wilderness, with its living and decaying trees, the thunder clouds, and the rain which lasts three weeks…” (Reef 12). To Thoreau, nature was a living being. He wanted to do more than just enjoy its beauty. Thoreau wrote, “Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine-trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it” (Hough 263).

Thoreau was an independent thinker; he was less content to accept opinions as facts, more argumentative, and entirely apt to shock everyone with his own unconventional opinions. Thoreau argued once that in a time of injustice, “The true place for a man is…a prison” (Burleigh 24). Thoreau did not pay taxes for three years because he did not believe

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