Sublime

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

Henry David Thoreau déclare son indépendance par rapport à la société américaine et va vivre à Walden Pond, dans le Massachussetts. Il imite consciemment les philosophes antiques et exprime le plus grand mépris pour la philosophie universitaire moderne. « De nos jours, il existe des professeurs de philosophie, mais pas de philosophes. […] Pour être

Thoreau veut mener une vie philosophique, ce qui, chez lui, se confond avec mener une vie simple. Pas de travail au-delà de ce qui est nécessaire pour subvenir à ses besoins élémentaires. Pas de famille : avoir charge d’âmes, femme et enfant, c’est vivre pour eux, donc cesser de vivre pour soi. Pas de patrie : que signifient des frontières humaines

At this same time, across the Atlantic, the influence of Stoicism could be found in the writings of the New England Transcendentalists. Henry David Thoreau, for example, doesn’t directly mention Stoicism or any of the great Stoics in Walden, his masterpiece, but to those who know what to look for, the Stoic influence is present. In his Journal, Tho

I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and

man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it.

I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice—for my greatest skill has been to want but little—so little capital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I contemplated