a combination of states we have to go through.
Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it.
That is a kind of death.
-Anais Nin
Life may be compared to a piece of embroidery,
of which, during the first half of his time,
a man gets a sight of the right side,
and during the second half, the wrong.
The wrong side is not so pretty as the right,
but it is more instructive;
it shows the way in which the threads have been worked together.
-Arthur Schopenhauer
Life breaks free.
Life expands to new territories.
Painfully, perhaps even dangerously.
But life finds a way.
-Michael Crichton
Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness,
but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off.
It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf.
If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.
-Franz Kafka
We realize nothing in life,
unless it becomes a part and parcel of our being,
assimilate nothing unless we pay the price...
If we grudge this price we cannot realize [it],
far less transmute it into an asset of our authentic personality.
We cannot take anything if it is simply given to us,
any more than we can have it for the asking.
We must merit it, earn it, be ready, if need be,
to play for it with our life's blood.
-Rabindranath Tagore
Such is the idea of a great and noble life:
to endure ambiguity in the movement of truth
and to make life shine through it:
to stand fast in uncertainty:
to be capable of unlimited love and hope.
-Karl Jaspers
Happy is the man who has the power
to think, to decide, to believe, to act, to speak, to read, to see, to write things
that can change life in meaningful ways.
-Sang H. Kim
