To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet. – Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, 1825

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. – G.K. Chesterton, “The Logic of Elfland,” Orthodoxy, 1908

Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor. – Dr. Alexis Carrel

You will never come up against a greater adversary than your own potential, my young friend. – Michael Piller and Michael Wagner, Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Evolution,”