Either you look at the universe as a very poor creation out of which no one can make anything or you look at your own life and your own part in the universe as infinitely rich, full of inexhaustible interest, opening out into infinite further possibilities for study and contemplation and interest and praise.
— Thomas Merton
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There standeth the boat — thither goeth it over, perhaps into vast nothingness — but who willeth to enter into this “Perhaps”?
None of you want to enter into the death-boat! How should ye then be WORLD-WEARY ones!
World-weary ones! And have not even withdrawn from the earth! Eager did I ever find you for the earth, amorous still of your own earth-weariness!
Not in vain doth your lip hang down: — a small worldly wish still sitteth thereon! And in your eye — floateth there not a cloudlet of unforgotten earthly bliss?
There are on the earth many good inventions, some useful, some pleasant: for their sake is the earth to be loved.
And many such good inventions are there, that they are like woman’s breasts: useful at the same time, and pleasant.
Ye world-weary ones, however! Ye earth-idlers! You, shall one beat with stripes! With stripes shall one again make you sprightly limbs.
For if ye be not invalids, or decrepit creatures, of whom the earth is weary, then are ye sly sloths, or dainty, sneaking pleasure-cats. And if ye will not again RUN gaily, then shall ye — pass away!
— Nietzsche
