Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American thinker, author, and a keen observer of life around him. When he deeply felt a need “to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life”, he left his hometown in Concord, Massachusetts, USA, and moved to the woods around Walden pond in 1845. He built himself a little cottage, and lived there on his own catching fish, growing beans, reading, writing and responding to the ever-changing woods around for the next two years.
Later he described this experience in his classic book Walden (1854) where he clearly put forward the idea of seeking fulfillment through simplifying life. Here is a collection of some of his ideas.
Minimalism and intentional living from 171 years ago
• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
• As long as possible live free and uncommitted.
• We may possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without suffering any of the disadvantage.
• I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely.
• Live a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. Solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.
• None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.
• Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
• Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.
• Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.
• Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.
• Do not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation.
• In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.
You can still read Walden today. It is available as a free PDF on the Net. You will find most of Thoreau’s minimalist ideas in these four chapters: Economy (chapter 01), Where I Lived and What I Lived For (chapter 02), Higher Laws (chapter 11) and Conclusion (chapter 18).
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About the Author: Prakash Deshmukh lives in an airy apartment on a quiet lane in a seaside village near Mumbai. He enjoys reading, meeting friends, working as an event organizer, and looking after himself. Experimenting with minimalism has brought new thrills and insights like never before.