When in disgrace with fortune in men's eyes, I all alone bewep my outcast state and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries and look upon myself and curse my fate. Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, featured like him. Like him with friends possessed, desiring this man's art and that man's scope, with what I most enjoy contented least. Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, happily I think on thee, and then my state, like to the lark at break of day, arising from sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate.
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The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to hope; and the man who has ceased to hope has ceased to live. For it is by the alternation of terror and desire that we keep alive the trembling flame of experience.
George Santayana — The Life of Reason
It is not by remorse for the past that we can repair our mistakes; it is by attention to the present, and by not repeating them.
Simone Weil — Waiting for God
Listen and learn. Time is divided into two rivers: one flows backward, devouring life already lived; the other moves forward with you exposing your life. For a single second they may be joined.
Pablo Neruda