You have suffered greatly, poor mother. Oh! do not lament, you have now the portion of the elect. It is read more

You have suffered greatly, poor mother. Oh! do not lament, you have now the portion of the elect. It is in this way that mortals become angels. It is not their fault; they do not know how to set about it otherwise. This hell from which you have come out is the first step towards Heaven. We must begin by that. -- Jean Valjean --

Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up and be extinguished like the flame read more

Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up and be extinguished like the flame of a candle, I say, is a gloriously fine thing. It makes us sober; it makes us a little sad; and many of us it makes poetic. But above all,

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, read more

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.

Life in a box is better than no life at all ... I expect.

Life in a box is better than no life at all ... I expect.

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a
brief sojourn; for what read more

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a
brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses
it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that
one exists for other people.

"O Charidas, what of the underworld?"
"Great darkness."
"And what of the resurrection?"
"A read more

"O Charidas, what of the underworld?"
"Great darkness."
"And what of the resurrection?"
"A lie."
"And Pluto?"
"A fable; we perish utterly."

Cats are magical. . .the more you pet them the longer you both live.

Cats are magical. . .the more you pet them the longer you both live.

The immortal could we cease to contemplate,
The mortal part suggests its every trait.
God laid His read more

The immortal could we cease to contemplate,
The mortal part suggests its every trait.
God laid His fingers on the ivories
Of her pure members as on smoothed keys,
And there out-breathed her spirit's harmonies.

Consider
The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:--
We are as they;
read more

Consider
The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:--
We are as they;
Like them we fade away
As doth a leaf.