I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather
looks,
And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.

--Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
"No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent,
a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the
lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or
of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved
in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It
tolls for thee."

- -MEDITATION XVII, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, John Donne
Our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine than it seems,
and hence we are able to survive the degradations and despairs which
otherwise must have engulfed us. -- Henry James.
The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.
I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way.
I have written some poetry that I don't understand myself.
Nothing happens unless first a dream.

--Carl Sandberg

Carl is my one of my favorite poets.
The human soul is like a bird born in a cage.
Nothing can deprive it of its natural longings, or
obliterate the mysterious remembrance of its heritage. -- Epes Sargent
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and
that has made all the difference.-- Robert Frost.
XXXVIII   One moment in Annihilation's waste
One moment of the well of life to taste -
The stars are setting, and the Caravan
Starts for the dawn of nothing - Oh make haste!            
- -Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam
Psalms 20:1-5, NIV

1 May the LORD answer you
when you are in distress;
may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
2 May he send you help from the sanctuary
and grant you support from Zion.
3 May he remember all your sacrifices
and accept your burnt offerings.
Selah
4 May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed.
5 We will shout for joy when you are victorious
and will lift up our banners in the name of our
God.
May the LORD grant all your requests.

--the psalmist David.
“All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given you.”
-Gandalf, from the movie, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, 2003.
"At my birth the front of heaven was full of fiery shapes." -- King Henry IV,
Part I, William Shakespeare
Per aspera ad astra: Through rough ways to the stars; through suffering to
renown.  --Latin proverb, Origin Unknown.
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What!
You too? I thought I was the only one. --C. S Lewis (1898-1963)
"I would like it very much if you thought of me as a mouse telling you a story,
this story with the whole of my heart, whispering it in your ear in order to
save myself from the darkness, and to save you from the darkness, too.
Stories are light," Gregory the jailer told Despereaux.
Reader. I hope you have found some light here. "

--The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
"The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend."

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove
all doubt." --Abraham Lincoln
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."   
 
"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."   
  
"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."     

"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."  

--Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
"How long does getting thin take?" Pooh asked anxiously.
I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me. --
Winnie-the-Pooh.
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making
exciting discoveries.-- A. A. Milne (1882 - 1956)
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious."
-Albert Einstein
INSPIRATION
Don't close your eyes.
This is your life.
Are you who you want to be?
This is your life.
Is it everything you dreamed it would be
when the world was younger
and you had everything to lose?

--Switchfoot
I’m ‘round the corner
from anything that’s real
I’m across the road from hope
I’m under a bridge in a rip tide
That’s taken everything I call my own

One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing

--Bono
I must create a system, or be
enslaved by another man's.

- William Blake (1757 - 1827)
INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
                                   --William Ernest Henley