here's a quote from the book i just finished:

"We do not build toward a time when everything stands still, but toward a time when everything is in a state of motion pleasing to all concerned--rock, plant, fish, bird, animal and man. It has never been, and never will be, easy work. But the road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination."

from The Fall of Atlantis by Marion Zimmer Bradley

p.s. It's the last sentence that struck me the most.

p.p.s. It is the use of man as the default for human, however, that produces an irritated twitch in my thoughts. it reminds me of too many real-life instances when influential statements (an easy example? the declaration of independence) used the word man, and yet the word man did not truly mean human as implied, disregarding women (children, and people of non-dominant ancestry, backgrounds, practices, and beliefs).