I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, And learn by going where I have to go. Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how? The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Great Nature has another thing to do To you and me, so take the lively air, And, lovely, learn by going where to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go." ― Theodore Roethke, The Collected Poems
"The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? No, thank you,' he will think. 'Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy." ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

"Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost." ― Arthur Schopenhauer

"Sometimes truths are what we run from, and sometimes they are what we seek." ― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

.

"I had an uneventful few days," it told her. "The most exciting thing was an hour-long lecture from the headmaster on taking our studies seriously. He said next year's exam will arrive sooner than we think." "No, they won't," Valkyrie said, frowning. "They'll arrive next year, exactly when we expect them." "That's what I told him," the reflection nodded. "I don't think he's comfortable with logic, because he didn't look happy. He sent me to the Career Guidance counsellor, who asked me what I wanted to do after college." Valkyrie stowed her black clothes. "What did you say?" "I told her I wanted to be a Career Guidance counsellor. She started crying, then accused me of mocking her. I told her if she wasn't happy in her job then she should look at other options, then pointed out that I was already doing her job better than she was. She gave me detention." ― Derek Landy, Kingdom of the Wicked.

"Some people live disconnected, in a world of their own. Their wishful thinking represents their sole veracity. But when the mirror smashes the reflection of their delusion, it will not falter to talk back. ( "The day the mirror was talking back" )" ― Erik Pevernagie

My father's voice may have grown quieter, as Lynn said it would, but I can see now that he actually left me something after all. He left me these little plucks of wisdom that spring forth when I need them most, and his perfectionist's insistence on finding the perfect tone for every song. He left me the twitch, that sudden jolt of my muscles when I see someone else on a stage, or when I realize my hands have been idle for too long. And he left me the yearning I get in the deepest fold of midnight when the rest of the world is sleeping, when the dark is too quiet or the air is too still, and something begins to strum in my gut. So maybe he didn't fail. Maybe neither of us did." ― Sarah Nicole Smetana, The Midnights