To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Henry David Thoreau spent two years living in a remote cabin on Walden Pond in Massachusetts, an experience that birthed his celebrated memoir, "Walden." In that time, he gave up luxuries and aesthetics, believing it was a more honorable challenge to redefine the meaning of a good life. He wrote in "Walden" about the importance of being "awake" through life — to live deliberately and enjoy the essential and divine elements of being alive. "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life," he wrote, adding, "I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor … to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look." To him, shaping your outlook on life was the highest art of all.