Civil Disobedience

In the excerpt from Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience", Thoreau argues that the government must recognize and accept the power of the individual. He states that it is the individuals who are governed that grant power to the government.
He begins by saying that the Americans Government is a tradition and as a tradition it is wrongly accepted as it is. He specifically mention the Mexican War and how it was the work of a few individuals using the government. He argues that the people if asked, would never have consented to the war. Thoreau believes that the government does very little but impede it's citizens. It is the people who keep the country free and he calls for a better government. A government should rely on the conscience of its citizens; citizens should not rely on the conscience of their legislator. A truly good government, according to Thoreau, must have the backing and consent of the governed. The governed must be aware of the power that they hold and be willing to demand that the government progress to a true respect for the individual.
Thoreau concluded in this excerpt that the State will never be truly enlightened and free until it recognizes the individual as "a higher and independent power" that gives the State the only power that it has. He states that this is the battle type of State he can only imagine, because he hasn't seen it yet.

Brahma

The first passage of Brahma refers to if people believe other people's
judgments, then it is impossible to make a sound
correct judgment about someone or something.
Emerson compares opposites through a series of paradoxes such as
stating "Shadow and sunlight are the same" or "The vanished gods to me appear."
All these paradoxes lead to the ultimate paradox of good and evil.
But after reading the paradoxes which Emerson expresses,
the reader can see the big picture of the comparison of heaven and
hell. The poem's narrator portrays himself as an entity of both heaven and hell, Satan
and God, and good and evil, by saying in the final line, "Find me, and turn thy back on
heaven."

Emerson Quote =]

"Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson