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.

Don't tell me peace has broken out.

Don't tell me peace has broken out.

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.

When you were born, you cried and everybody else was happy. The only question that matters is this: When you read more

When you were born, you cried and everybody else was happy. The only question that matters is this: When you die, will YOU be happy when everybody else is crying?

Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down read more

Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

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.

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round read more

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already-the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.

When pain can't bless, heaven quits us in despair.

When pain can't bless, heaven quits us in despair.

There is no such thing as happiness, only lesser shades of melancholy.

There is no such thing as happiness, only lesser shades of melancholy.