“ I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business. ”
Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle (1863). copy citation
| Author | Henry David Thoreau |
|---|---|
| Source | Life Without Principle |
| Topic | life business poetry |
| Date | 1863 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Atlantic_Monthly/Volume_12/Number_71/... |
Context
“An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for—business! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business.
There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the outskirts of our town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the hill along the edge of his meadow. The powers have put this into his head to keep him out of mischief, and he wishes me to spend three weeks digging there with him.” source
There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the outskirts of our town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the hill along the edge of his meadow. The powers have put this into his head to keep him out of mischief, and he wishes me to spend three weeks digging there with him.” source
Meaning and analysis
