Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson had two different views on how America should be ran and two different views on society. Thoreau didn’t like people acting against the government, but he also believed that the government shouldn’t be in other people’s business. Emerson believed that the government should have power, but not control people’s lives. They both believed that the government shouldn’t be able to interfere in people’s lives. “Government is best which governs not at all.” (Civil Disobedience 388) They both share a love of nature and simplicity. Both of them lived at Walden Pond and believed that people should search for the truths in nature. “Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning place.” (Nature