Thoreau: "Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself- an hypaethral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods?... Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?"

Thoreau: "Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself- an hypaethral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods?... Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?"

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/WALDEN/Essays/life.html