Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness (full quote)

I believe what Thoreau was trying to say was we all have purpose. In the chapter he mentions that we can live without some of the things we have and if cutting down some of the materials in life, we would be better. We all have a purpose and we all have our faults, that’s what makes us who we are. We were created as humans for a reason.

Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled. (Full quote)

In solitude good can happen. We have the space around us in which the universe created for us to enjoy and we can live apart from each other. The need for being together all the time is not necessary, but if you look around what you, you will see beauty. If your spirit is crush do not it effect your life permanently.

I look down into the quiet parlor of the fishes, pervaded by a softened light as through a window of ground glass, with its bright sanded floor the same as in summer; there a perennial waveless serenity reigns as in the amber twilight sky, […] Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. . . .

The way he describes how the light touches the pond is apart of how important he thinks of nature. The description used in the passage was when he was going to get some water to drink and he thinks of the beauty in the simplest events in his life. His purpose seemed to describe the snow that was around his and how it laid. Beauty is something seem and he does his best to describe it.

The change from storm and winter to serene and mild weather, from dark and sluggish hours to bright and elastic ones, is a memorable crisis which all things proclaim. (Full quote)

Thoreau knows as humans we all have our days were we do not do our best. His purpose that good or bad (event, times) we will remember them for they are ours to claim. Whether we choose to claim them as good or bad is up to us.

It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. (Full quote)

As society we tend to do the same things and work ourselves so we can earn more money. Thoreau mentions that if we simplified our lives, the world would seem less complex and easier to understand. His purpose to meet life and enjoy all that it has to offer. If we stood in corner and confined ourself it would do us no good.