Henry David Thoreau vs Lao Tzu on Wholeness
Henry David Thoreau and Lao Tzu on wholeness, side by side — 15 passages against 10, and what the disagreement is actually about.
Henry David Thoreau and Lao Tzu both have a great deal to say about wholeness — 15 passages and 10 respectively in thinkr's library — and they do not say the same thing. Setting them side by side is more useful than reading either alone, because the disagreement shows you what each position is actually giving up.
Henry David Thoreau on wholeness
American naturalist and essayist. Walden records two years lived simply by a Massachusetts pond, a meditation on awakening and the genuine life.
“I am a parcel of vain strivings tied / By a chance bond together, / Dangling this way and that, their links / Were made so loose and wide, / Methinks, / For milder weather.”
“The life that I aspire to live / No man proposeth me—No trade upon the street / Wears its emblazonry.”
“When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?”
“The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.”
“A slight sound at evening lifts me up by the ears, and makes life seem inexpressibly serene and grand. It may be Uranus, or it may be in the shutter.”
“The bluebird carries the sky on his back.”
“The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.”
“Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”
“That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”
“It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves.”
“The savage in man is never quite eradicated.”
“I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.”
“Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.”
“I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject.”
“The rich man... is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.”
Lao Tzu on wholeness
Semi-legendary sage credited with the Tao Te Ching, the foundational text of Taoism. Counsels wu wei — effortless action, yielding, simplicity.
“The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less you understand.”
“The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds.”
“Governing a large country is like frying a small fish.”
“A journey of a thousand miles started with a first step.”
“People are difficult to be ruled, Because the ruler governs with personal desire and establishes too many laws to confuse the people.”
“Nothing that can be said in words is worth saying.”
“Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.”
“When I am anxious it is because I am living in the future. When I am depressed it is because I am living in the past.”
“Lao-tse may be regarded as the deepest thinker of Chinese antiquity.”
“Political leaders are never leaders. For leaders we have to look to the Awakeners! Lao Tse, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Milarepa, Gurdjiev, Krishnamurti.”
Where they part
USA, 1817–1862 and China, c. 6th–4th c. BCE are not the same world, and the difference is not only historical. Henry David Thoreau treats wholeness as something to be i am a parcel of vain… — a matter of practice. Lao Tzu approaches it from another side entirely. Neither is refuting the other; they are answering slightly different questions, and noticing which question you are actually asking is most of the work.