Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle

Henry David Thoreau

Life Without Principle is an essay by Henry David Thoreau that offers his program for a righteous livelihood.

Henry David Thoreau (see name pronunciation; July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist, Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Resistance to Civil Government (also known as Civil Disobedience), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and "Yankee" love of practical detail. He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs.

Themes

• Don't cheat people by conspiring with them to protect their comfort zones.
• Don't make religions and other such institutions the sort of intellectual comfort zone that prevents you from entertaining ideas that aren't to be found there.
• Don't cheat yourself by working primarily for a paycheck. If what you do with your life free-of-charge is so worthless to you that you'd be convinced to do something else in exchange for a little money or fame, you need better hobbies.
• Furthermore, don't hire someone who's only in it for the money.
• Sustain yourself by the life you live, not by exchanging your life for money and living off that.
• It is a shame to be living off an inheritance, charity, a government pension, or to gamble your way to prosperity - either through a lottery or by such means as prospecting for gold.
• Remember that what is valuable about a thing is not the same as how much money it will fetch on the market.
• Don't waste conversation and attention on the superficial trivialities and gossip of the daily news, but attend to things of more import: "Read not the Times. Read the Eternities."
• Similarly, politics is something that ought to be a minor and discreet part of life, not the grotesque public sport it has become.
• Don't mistake the march of commerce for progress and civilization - especially when that commerce amounts to driving slaves to produce the articles of vice like alcohol and tobacco. There's no shortage of gold, of tobacco, of alcohol, but there is a short supply of "a high and earnest purpose."