I'll take it

Okay, welcome to Okay, welcome to Effortless English.

This is A.J. Hoag in San Francisco, California.

Today's podcast is an excerpt, a portion, a part of my favorite American book.

The title of the book is Walden and the writer Henry David Thoreau.

Thoreau lived in the 1800s just prior to before the American Civil War.

And he conducted an interesting experiment. He decided to live very very simply. He went to the woods outside his hometown and for two years he lived in a very small little house that he built himself, really a hut, not really a house,

and he grew his own food and he lived as simply as possible.

And after this experiment he wrote this book called

Walden and it's about his experience but mostly it's about his philosophy of life.

Okay let's get started. This is a section one of Walden. It's from the first chapter.

It's not the complete first chapter, just sections of it.

Okay, here we go. Walden. The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.

What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and

amusements of mankind. When we consider what is the chief purpose of

man and what are the true necessities and means of life, it appears as if man had

deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other.

Yet, they honestly think there is no choice left.

But it is never too late to give up prejudices. No way of living, however ancient, can

be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people and new deeds for the new. Old people

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