Thoreau

"I do not value any view of the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very largely and absorb much of the attention. "Man is but the place where I stand; and the prospect hence is infinite. It is not a chamber of mirrors which reflect me. When I reflect, I find that there is other than me. "Man is a past phenomenon to philosophy. The universe is larger than enough for man’s abode. "Some rarely go outdoors, most are always at home at night, very few indeed have stayed out all night once in their lives, fewer still have gone behind the world of humanity, seen its institutions like toadstools by the wayside."

~ Henry David Thoreau