This essay is about Henry David Thoreau and it supposert the idea that he lived what he wrote.

Henry David Thoreau

"If a man does not keep peace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured (Thoreau, Walden)." This quote comes from writer Henry David Thoreau, author of several writings including Walden and Civil Disobedience. Thoreau was a man of thought and criticized mankinds way of life, and in his time this was unheard of. Thoreau also criticized government to the fullest. Thoreau felt "That government is best which governs not at all (Thoreau, Civil Disobedience)." Thoreau once gave up his freedom for not paying his taxes under circumstances that he did not see ethically and morally right. Thoreau was a being who did not follow in footstep but instead made his own. Through his writings and actions it is apparent that he does follow his own advice by marching and letting others march to a different drummer.

English: Henry David Thoreau, photograph taken in ...

English: Portrait by Benjamin D. Maxham (daguerreo...

English: Signature of author Henry David Thoreau

Even though Thoreau had very strong opinions he did not force them on others. Instead of forcing them on others he chose to educate people and open their minds by his writings. In Walden he tells about the actual simplicity of life and how people should see it that way. He comes to this by spending several weeks in a small cabin near a pond, by himself, with very little that he did not need to survive. The significance of the writing Walden was that it was of a life that was lived. It was not a story but in fact an essay that came form experience. The fact that the writing was once lived made it more of an influential writing but at the same time, because it was only writing, gave people the option not to hear what he had to...