Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, read more

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character. So, melancholy is morbid only when it occupies too much place in life; but it is equally morbid for it to be wholly excluded from life.

If you want an open society, you have to put up with the chaos.

If you want an open society, you have to put up with the chaos.

In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to peace. Such is read more

In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to peace. Such is the teaching of the Sages.

Where the mind is past hope, the heart is past shame.

Where the mind is past hope, the heart is past shame.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am read more

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.

The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.

I've never thought of my characters as being sad. On the contrary, they are full of life. They didn't choose read more

I've never thought of my characters as being sad. On the contrary, they are full of life. They didn't choose tragedy. Tragedy chose them.

Harmony is one phase of the law whose spiritual expression is love.

Harmony is one phase of the law whose spiritual expression is love.

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not read more

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.