In his two inspired masterworks, Walden and Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau reflects on life, politics, and society. Thoreau relocated to a cottage on the shores of Walden Pond in Massachusetts in 1845, which he constructed himself. Thoreau reaped both physically and mentally from the earth, and searched truth in the stillness of nature, shedding the superficial ties that he felt linked much of humanity. He describes how isolating oneself from the world of men can actually awaken the sleeping self in Walden. Thoreau is a firm believer in the idea that you haven't actually existing until you embrace such a lifestyle-and that only then can you reenter society as a wise being.
