"He sounds, as it were, the fatal bottom of our organic existence, and yet claims not merely to accept the universe, as another Transcendentalist, Margaret Fuller, put it, but to rejoice in it. ... To the dark immensity of material Nature's indifference we can oppose only the brief light, like a lamp in a cabin, of our consciousness; the invigorating benison of Walden is to make us feel that the contest is equal, and fair. It has emerged over time as one of the great testaments of American individualism, assuring the New World, traditional reassurances failing, of the value, power, and beauty of the unfettered self."
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Anarchists from the United StatesAbolitionistsUnitarians from the United States19th-century poets from the United StatesLeft-libertarians
Original Language: English
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Sources
John Updike, in "A Sage for All Seasons" in The Guardian (26 June 2004)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau
1817 – 1862
US-amerikanischer Schriftsteller
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