Henry David Thoreau Transcendentalism

Henry David Thoreau is often seen as one of the original and true transcendentalists. His quotes, along with quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson are widely known and used as inspiration for hundreds of thousands of different people. In the book Where I Lived and What I Lived For by Henry David Thoreau, there is a quote that says, “Time is but the stream I go fishing in. I drink at it but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars” (Thoreau 376). When reading this work, this line in particular stood out to me. It seemed so out of place, a line about fish and rivers directly after talking about the uncertainty …show more content…
While the quote is the beginning of its own paragraph, it starts after he talks about the continuation of time, and the beginning of the quote I picked continues that idea when saying “Time is but the stream I go fishing in,” (Thoreau) but that remains the only mention of time by name. The quote continues to say, “Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains” (Thoreau) and while it mentions some sort of time, it fails to mention the true effect. In the paragraph before, it also mentions how uncertain people are and how unreliable they can be when relying on time and systems made by others. This uncertainty feels represented by the quote as it’s so unexpected and feels out of place if not compared to the surrounding context. “I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is,” (Thoreau). Continuing on from the idea of the uncertainty of humanity, you can move towards the uncertainty people have in each other and the distrust one can experience towards their peers. I often am judged for having a natural distrust in people, which this quote shows me reasoning behind my own

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