“When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism,
is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life,
it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because
they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice
left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is
never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however
ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence
passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of
opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing
rain on their fields.” –Henry David Thoreau, Walden
