Already nature is serving all those uses which science slowly derives on a much higher and grander scale to him that will be served by her. When the sunshine falls on the path of the poet, he enjoys all those pure benefits and pleasures which the arts slowly and partially realize from age to age. The winds which fan his cheek waft him the sum of that profit and happiness which their lagging inventions supply.
Henry David ThoreauTo be awake is to be completely alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.
Henry David ThoreauTo him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.
Henry David ThoreauI have no doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric age, for men have always thought more of eating than of fighting; then, as now, their minds ran chiefly on the "hot bread and sweet cakes;" and the fur and lumber trade is an old story to Asia and Europe.
Henry David Thoreau