—The Portrait, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol
It is now better and better understood that the social improvements which we all so passionately desire can be achieved through normal evolutionary development — with immeasurably fewer losses and without all-encompassing decay. We must be able to improve, patiently, that which we have in any given “today.”
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
I must die. I must be imprisoned. I must suffer exile.
But must I die groaning? Must I whine as well?
Can anyone hinder me from going into exile with a smile?
The master threatens to chain me: what say you? Chain me?
My leg you will chain—yes, but not my will—no,
not even Zeus can conquer that.
―Epictetus
To live in the world of creation—to get into it and stay in it—to frequent it and haunt it—to think intently and fruitfully—to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation—this is the only thing—and I neglect it, far and away too much; from indolence, from vagueness, from inattention, and from a strange nervous fear of letting myself go. If I can vanquish that nervousness, the world is mine.
—Henry James
