The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. And yet it is precisely in the collision between our designs and reality's indifference that character is forged — not in triumph, but in the willingness to begin again.

It is not given to the world to be content; it is given to us to be content with the world. But there is a deeper discontent which is divine — the dissatisfaction of the possible with the actual.

We are compelled to drive onward; we cannot turn back. There is a fire in men that does not let them rest. And so they must go on and on, until they find something real — or perish in the attempt.

A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? The appetite grows with eating; the more one has, the more one wants.