Sections 1 When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a… 2 I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders as you… 3 But men labor under a mistake. 4 I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross… 5 When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what… 6 The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by their predecessors,… 7 I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. 8 By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own… 9 The grand necessity, then, for our bodies, is to keep warm, to keep the vital heat in us. 10 Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not… 11 I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who will mind their own… 12 So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to hear what was in the… 13 Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer… 14 I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. 15 As this business was to be entered into without the usual capital, it may not be easy to… 16 I have heard of a dog that barked at every stranger who approached his master’s premises… 17 We don garment after garment, as if we grew like exogenous plants by addition without. 18 On the whole, I think that it cannot be maintained that dressing has in this or any country… 19 As for a Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessary of life, though there are… 20 However, if one designs to construct a dwelling house, it behooves him to exercise a little… 21 In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its… 22 It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding this superfluous… 23 The farmer is endeavoring to solve the problem of a livelihood by a formula more complicated… 24 But how do the poor minority fare? 25 Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly… 26 The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages imply this advantage… 27 Old Johnson, in his “Wonder-Working Providence,” 28 Though we are not so degenerate but that we might possibly live in a cave or a wigwam or… 29 Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond,… 30 So I went on for some days cutting and hewing timber, and also studs and rafters, all with… 31 By the middle of April, for I made no haste in my work, but rather made the most of it, my… 32 I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, where a woodchuck had formerly… 33 It would be worth the while to build still more deliberately than I did, considering, for… 34 True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least… 35 What if an equal ado were made about the ornaments of style in literature, and the… 36 I intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street in Concord in… 37 The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any… 38 As with our colleges, so with a hundred “modern improvements”; there is an illusion about… 39 Such is the universal law, which no man can ever outwit, and with regard to the railroad… 40 $ 23.44 Deducting the outgoes,........... 41 I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of… 42 Genius is not a retainer to any emperor, nor is its material silver, or gold, or marble,… 43 By surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various other kinds in the village in the mean… 44 These statistics, however accidental and therefore uninstructive they may appear, as they… 45 Bread I at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, genuine hoe-cakes, which I baked before… 46 Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and… 47 My furniture, part of which I made myself, and the rest cost me nothing of which I have not… 48 I cannot but feel compassion when I hear some trig, compact-looking man, seemingly free, all… 49 The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they… 50 For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I… 51 In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this… 52 But all this is very selfish, I have heard some of my townsmen say. 53 I am far from supposing that my case is a peculiar one; no doubt many of my readers would… 54 The Jesuits were quite balked by those Indians who, being burned at the stake, suggested new… 55 Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. 56 I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in…
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