Walden

This is only a short answer space and your question is pretty broad. Thoreau’s life at Walden Pond embodies a philosophy set out most famously and directly in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, "Self-Reliance." The main idea is that anything worth-while must be done by the individual without the help of government. Then one can truly know what it is to be responsible for your own destiny rather than be at the mercy of others who might help you but dictate how you should live. This type of rugged individual idealism is still a part of the American ethos today.