breandasai

power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished

This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life

in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined

looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great

over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge

Which are and which are not is something one soon enough learns on one’s own.

obviously, is worth esteeming, nor all ambition worth cultivating.

no significance alongside the force of movements and events now not all success,

That achievement is at bottom empty? That the efforts of men and women are

but purely celebratory in its functions. Longevity would be increased

It is not difficult to imagine a world short of ambition.

but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose

Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of achievement. If Hugh Miller,

through their author’s minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks

whether it be of books or of men. A good book may be among

only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight. Particularly does this observation