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Solitude and Self-Reliance

23:26 recording · EN · 1 speaker

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Brief overview

Thoreau argues each man should follow his own calling rather than professional philanthropy, which he judges overrated.

  1. Pursue your own way, not an inherited oneHe would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead.
  2. Cooperation means getting our living togetherThe only cooperation commonly possible is partial and superficial; the man who goes alone can start today, while he who travels with another must wait.
  3. Strike at the root, not the branches of evilA thousand hack at the branches of evil to one who strikes at the root, and the biggest giver may be producing the misery he tries to relieve.
Executive Summary AI
  • The narrator refuses to let anyone copy his mode of living, urging instead that each person carefully find and pursue his own way, not his father's or his neighbor's.
  • He defines real cooperation as getting our living together, and illustrates its rarity with two young men proposing to travel the world, one earning his way, the other carrying a bill of exchange, who would part at the first crisis.
  • Confessing he has indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises, he says that when he offered to maintain certain poor persons as comfortably as himself, they one and all unhesitatingly preferred to remain poor.
  • He recounts pitying the ragged Irish labourers cutting ice on the pond until one who fell in stripped off three pairs of pants and two pairs of stockings at his house, after which he concluded it would be a greater charity to give himself a flannel shirt than a whole slop-shop to the labourer.
  • He closes by attacking the cant that ranks Penn, Howard, and Mrs. Fry above Shakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, and Newton, demanding justice for all whose lives and works bless mankind, and quoting Sheikh Sadi's Gulistan on the cypress, called azad or free because it bears no fruit.
Key Quote
“If a man has faith, he will cooperate with equal faith everywhere.”
— Narrator
Key Quote
“To cooperate in the highest as well as the lowest sense means to get our living together.”
— Narrator
Key Quote
“There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine carrion.”
— Narrator

Transcript

0:00 CHAPTER I. ECONOMY
0:27 One young man of my acquaintance, who has inherited some acres, told me that he thought
0:38 he should live as I did, if he had the means.
0:41 I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living on any account. For, beside that before
0:47 he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be
0:53 as many different persons in the world as possible. But I would have each one be very careful to find
1:00 out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead.
1:07 The youth may build or plant or sail.
1:13 Only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.
1:19 It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the pole star
1:27 in his eye, but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port
1:36 within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.
1:43 Undoubtedly, in this case, what is true for one is truer still for a thousand as a large house is not proportionally more expensive than a small one since one roof may cover one cellar underlie and one wall separate several apartments but for my part i preferred the solitary dwelling moreover it will commonly be cheaper to build the whole yourself than to convince another of the advantage of the common wall
2:13 and when you have done this the common partition to be much cheaper must be a thin one and that other may prove a bad neighbor, and also not keep his side in repair.
2:27 The only cooperation which is commonly possible is exceedingly partial and superficial,
2:33 and what little true cooperation there is, is as if it were not being a harmony inaudible to men.
2:43 If a man has faith, he will cooperate with equal faith everywhere.
2:49 If he has not faith, he will continue to live like the rest of the world, whatever company he is joined to.
2:56 To cooperate in the highest as well as the lowest sense means to get our living together.
3:08 I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he went,
3:14 before the mast and behind the plough, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket.
3:20 It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or co-operate since one would not operate at all they would part at the first interesting crisis in their adventures
3:33 above all as i have implied the man who goes alone can start to-day but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before
3:46 they get off. But all this is very selfish, I have heard some of my townsmen say. I confess
3:54 that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises. I have made some
4:00 sacrifices to a sense of duty, and among others have sacrificed this pleasure also, there are
4:07 those who have used all their arts to persuade me to undertake the support of some poor family in
4:13 the town, and if I had nothing to do, for the devil finds employment for the idle, I might try
4:20 my hand at some such pastime as that. However, when I have thought to indulge myself in this respect,
4:29 and lay their heaven under an obligation by maintaining certain poor persons in all respects
4:35 as comfortably as I maintain myself, and have even ventured so far as to make them the offer, they have one and all unhesitatingly preferred to remain poor.
4:48 While my town's men and women are devoted in so many ways to the good of their fellows,
4:54 I trust that one at least may be spared two other and less humane pursuits.
5:02 You must have a genius for charity, as well as for anything else. As for doing good,
5:10 that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly,
5:17 and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.
5:24 Probably I should not consciously and deliberately
5:26 forsake my particular calling to do the good which society demands of me, to save the universe
5:34 from annihilation. And I believe that a like but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere
5:42 is all that now preserves it. But I would not stand between any man and his

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