Henry David Thoreau was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian, two of his greatest works are: "Resistance to Civil Government" (also known as "Civil Disobedience") and "The Mask of Anarchy". His ideals can be summarized by this statement: “the Government should not have more power than the bestowed by its citizens”.
Henry David Thoreau was even imprisoned for refusing to pay taxes in protest for the Mexican-American War and the slavery.
In this passage from Walden, Thoreau the analogy is:
He is comparing life to a moving train
Here we have the evidence to support the analogy:
Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails.
