The imagery here is really vivid, I love how solidly he painted a picture for us to see

it's as if he has become the Snow White of the forest, befriending all the animals while he does his chores.

for anyone else having a hard time reading with the highlights on, you can turn them off by clicking the little eye symbol. :)

Interesting how the takes the military music and parties and applies it to his own personal battles. The parties in the town, the music he hears. all comes back to his war that he is fighting for his beans. Love the metaphor.

Where most people would sit out and see bugs and birds and dirt, he has made the dance of nature into a dramatic and beautiful sight, a show that he got to watch every day.

interesting flip of narration, from first person to third, then straight back

Is this intimacy part of why he is so fond of living a simple life? Could being intimate with a flower garden give the same satisfaction?

The irony of "removing the weeds" just to "encourage this weed which I had sown" is rich here. He recognizes that what he has planted is considered a weed to the wild forest, but works closely with the land to help it do what he he needs.

his use of personification is amazing. I love the idea that the waves of the pond worked with the loons to chase off the hunters.

It's as if they were playing a game of tag, and Thoreau was horribly under qualified.

If no one was striving to have more then there would be no need to take things that don't belong to you. Living simply shifts where value is placed.

I love this! Again, Thoreau manages to speak not only to his timeframe, but to the current time too. You really do need to be lost in order to be found, or to find yourself.

Per Wikipedia: "The etesians, meltemia, or meltem are the strong, dry north winds of the Aegean Sea, which blow from about mid-May to mid-September. The Etesian winds are a dominant weather influence in the Aegean Basin."

the description of this sound is so vivid it's as if I can see music dancing through the air and talking to to the leaves.

I love how he twists and turns and jumps around when talking about trains, to come to the conclusion of we need to stay in our lane. Live your life as it was meant to be lived, and allow the path to guide you where you're supposed to go.

It's amazing that he was so far out, giving so much detail about the wilderness, but so close that the train whistle can paint such a vivid photo when it sounds.

I love that the birds and flowers have a standard, and that he gives it so much attention to meet that standard. Why abide by townsmen, when you can live by the laws of flowers?

Giving life to his possessions. Why should they want to go back inside, when the drama of life is out? I love how he breathes an energy into everything that he writes about, even gladness into a table.

Such a timeless statement, we need to use the right words, not more words.

makes me think of modern vehicles with tvs built in, and giant touch screens that are cool, but not safe for use when driving. we have learned nothing.

hopefully people are starting to think more like this, with the minimalist trend going around, and people "Marie Kondo-ing" their houses. Why are we not content with less? Why do we want to have so much, and always newer and bigger and better?

This is such a valid point, and still true today. We have so much stuff it's really too much, and all we do is accumulate more. We get attached to it and form emotional bonds with objects. It would be helpful if people lived a year or two with the only, as Thoreau put it, "the gross necessaries of life"

After using the entire paragraph to speak ill of society, and make it clear that he doesn't approve of slavery, both enslavement of another human, and also enslavement of yourself to yourself or to society's standards, this sentence really jumped out at me. I think the use of the phrase "kill time" could refer both to the time that everyone is wasting being slaves or slave drivers, but also after the "ladies...weaving toilet cushions" maybe he also means what people do in their spare time as well? So by living the way that we do, we're literally killing time and therefore injuring eternity.

This paragraph shows you vividly where he wrote his book, and how simple of a life he was leading when he wrote it. Concluding it with this sentence is a bit of a flip, though the use of the word sojourner tells us that he doesn't have any intention of remaining in civilized life. Why would he rather live in a small house, on a lake by himself? What is so bad about civilization? Why did he come back to be civilized after over two years if he didn't intend to remain?