"We forget to strive and aspire, to do better even than is expected of us. 

To please our friends and relatives we turn out our silver ore in cartloads, while we neglect to work our mines of gold known only to ourselves, far up in the Sierras, where we pulled up a bush in our mountain walk, and saw the glittering treasure. Let us return thither. Let it be the price of our freedom to make that known."  Thoreau.

Oh, I like this quote, so practical and relevant to us all. "We forget to strive and aspire", Now I'm not sure that the main reason we do not strive to be better men and women is we forget; it may also include sloth, lack of faith that we can re-enter the mountain tops and feel the closeness of God as we once did. We convince ourselves that less than our best, "silver ore", is good enough. Looking back on my life I can plainly see that had I pressed in, "worked the mines of gold, and pursued God as the "hart panteth after the water brooks",  I should have served my family and fellow man with deeper love and greater zeal.