The set of the sails ...

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
(George Bernard Shaw)

The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.
(Willa Cather)

If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see,

you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.

(S.I. Hayakawa.1906-92)

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed.

I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible.

But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.

(Gandhi)

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering.

You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.

(Winston Churchill, May 13, 1940)

Tho' much is taken, much abides : and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are:

One equal temper of heroic hearts

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.     

(Tennyson,  Ulysses)

Life is not so important as the duties of life.

(John Randolph of Roanoke)

Oscar cách i gceird araile -  everyone is a beginner at another's trade

I've lived to bury my desires,
And see my dreams corrode with rust;
Now all that's left are fruitless fires
That burn my empty heart to dust.

(Aleksandr Pushkin)

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.

-- C. Sandburg. Remembrance Rock.

It was in the reign of George III

that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled ;

good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor,

they are all equal now.
― William Makepeace Thackeray, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. written by himself

The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But, to return, and view the cheerful skies;
In this, the task and mighty labour lies.

(Les portes de l'Enfer sont nuit et jour béantes,

Douce y est la descente, et aisé le chemin.

Oui mais… en revenir, revoir les cieux sereins –

Là est le dur labeur, la tâche exténuante.)

Virgil (70–19 BC), Aeneid, bk. 6 (translated by John Dryden).

Of things whereof we have no certain knowledge,

we ought to regulate our assent and moderate our persuasion.

(John Locke)

Empty vessels make most noise.

Les pots vides sont ceux qui font le plus de bruit.

Dans un poème très ambigu dédié à Cromwell (une sorte de Robespierre anglais, père d'une première république, vite changée en dictature), Andrew Marvell écrit les lignes ci-dessous.

Elles semblent suggèrer que quand un grand leader émerge, il faut savoir l'accompagner dans sa course vers la grandeur et vers la gloire.

Mais elles peuvent aussi se lire autrement - mot d'ordre de liberté et de révolte sous couvert d'éloge: quand un leadership s'impose par la force, quand les codes qui régulent la vie du groupe ne sont plus respectés, quand parler est impossible (parce qu'interdit ou trop risqué), alors il faut savoir décider que :

'Tis time to leave the books in dust

And oil th'unusèd armor's rust,

Removing from the wall

The corselet of the hall.

Il faut à la poussière nos livres délaisser

Et huiler, de l'armure, la rouille négligée,

Puis oter de son présentoir

La cuirasse du manoir.