Résumé
Résumé de Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience
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You will love this book if you enjoy dry wit, a notebook of numbers kept beside a pond, and a writer who questions how you spend your days. It suits readers who care about nature, thrift and conscience.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
What would you give up to own your own time? In the spring of 1845, Henry David Thoreau borrows an axe, walks to the shore of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts, and starts cutting young pines for a house. He moves in on the Fourth of July and stays two years and two months.
Walden, published in 1854, is his account of that life. Bound with it is On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, the essay on why he spent a night in jail for refusing to pay a tax. You get a man with a hoe, an account book and a sharp tongue, asking what a life is for.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Most people are chained to their own burdensFree
- 2Four needs come first: food, shelter, clothing, fuel
- 3The real price of a thing is your life
- 4Build your own shelter with your own hands
- 5Live simply and work only a little
- 6Live deliberately and simplify your days
- 7Read the best books and listen to nature
- 8Solitude is good company when you use it
- 9Nature teaches through the pond and the seasons
- 10Conscience outranks the majority and the State
Point clé 1 sur 10
Most people are chained to their own burdens
Thoreau starts with the people around him. He walks through Concord and sees people doing penance in a thousand odd ways. The labors of Hercules were small beside these, because Hercules finished his tasks and these men never do.
He pities young men who inherit farms, barns, cattle and tools. These things are easier to get than to get rid of. The working person, he argues, has no free time to live well. Debt follows people to the grave.
He also doubts the advice of the old. He has lived about thirty years and has heard no valuable word from his elders. Count what you own, then ask what it owns of you.
Most people lead lives of quiet desperation, and the first step out is to notice the load you carry.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience
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About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 110,100 words
- Reading timeAbout 7 h 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience
What is Walden about?
Walden is Thoreau's account of two years and two months living in a cabin he built by Walden Pond near Concord. It covers simple living, costs, reading, solitude, nature and the seasons, and a case for self-reliance.
Why did Thoreau go to Walden Pond?
He says he sought a purposeful life focused on what truly mattered, hoping to discover its lessons rather than reach his final days and realize he had never truly experienced living.
What is civil disobedience according to Thoreau?
He means refusing to support a government that does wrong, especially by withholding taxes, and accepting the penalty. He argues that conscience, not the majority, decides what a person must do.
Is Walden a true story?
Yes. Thoreau lived in the cabin from 1845 to 1847 and published the book in 1854. He compresses the two years into one cycle of seasons, and he lists real costs and dates.
What is the main message of Walden?
Life costs the time you trade for it, so simplify your wants, do for yourself what you can, stay close to nature, and live by your own conscience rather than by habit or fashion.
Cite this edition
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/walden-and-on-the-duty-of-civil-disobedience.
Thoreau, H. D. (2026). Walden, and On the duty of civil disobedience. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/walden-and-on-the-duty-of-civil-disobedience
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/walden-and-on-the-duty-of-civil-disobedience.
@book{thoreau2026walden,
author = {Thoreau, Henry David},
title = {Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/walden-and-on-the-duty-of-civil-disobedience}
}
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Get the full summary of Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, free
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