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In Walden and Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau writes of his experiences living in wilder conditions alongside a pond, rather than with mainstream civilization. He expresses a very life-affirming view, and quite beautifully. Intuitively, he seems to grasp much of what characterizes the good life, without recourse to modern scientific precision. A few times he seems to veer off into his own preferences as if they represented some of the grander, more abstract ideas and ideals he represents. However, overall he seems to convey the importance of developing our meanings in life.

I especially like this passage:

I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that "they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents. -- Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress."