So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

It is easy to keep things at a distance; it is hard to be naturally beyond them. – Bunan

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. – F. Scott Fitzgerald