Henry David Thoreau.

[coloradodem2005]

I am reading some interesting things on the internet of Henry David Thoreau. I ought to read Walden sometime. THe thing I find intriguing are his views. THough, I have heard his views on education were interesting because he does not believe in Tests or grades as we know them.:



Thoreau's philosophy on moral individualism is distinctively American. The main concept in his philosophy is that of "independence". First of all, he declared his independence of the deep-rooted Calvinism of New England, and especially the doctrine of the Original Sin, by insisting upon man's aboriginal innocence and the responsibility of each individual to recover it. He also decalred his independence of tradition and even of his past self. This was the meaning of his celebration of "morning" in his book Walden. Morning is his great symbol of rebirth and re-generation; it is the opportunity for a new start.
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According to Thoreau, all persons by nature of personhood are innately invested with unique potential worth. His term for that is "genius", and regards it as that person's "reality" or true self, which his actual self may or may not reflect. This exists in potentia. In childhood one's distinctive potentiality is latent but during adolescence the responsibility for self-discovery starts. According to him, self-discovery can only occur experimentally, and it consists in the discovery, not of an idea of ourselves, but of what "rightfully attracts" us. In other words our genius or innate self subsists as a system of preferences and aversions. Our first responsibility is the work of progressively actualizing our distinctive potential worth. This is the primary moral business. "Let everyone mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.
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http://www.everything2.com/index.pl

[Goldeneye]

1. I read Walden a few years ago

some of my favorite quotes:

"...and the cost of a thing is the amount of life which is required to be exchanged for it."

"...for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."

"I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient, while others have not enough."

"You who governs public affairs, what need have you to empty punishments? Love virtue and eh people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; The virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass when the wind passes over it, bends."

"Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is clever; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine."