“O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!”
Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist
Despondency.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
"Per Pacem ad Lucem".
A Chaplet of Verses (1862)
“O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!”
Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist
Despondency.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“O Lord! thou knowest how busy I must be this day: if I forget thee, do not thou forget me.”
Jacob Astley, 1st Baron Astley of Reading (1579–1652) British Royalist commander
Prayer before the Battle of Edgehill (1642), quoted by Sir Philip Warwick, Memoires, 1701. <br class="br">Source: * Hastings ** Max ** 1986 ** The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes ** Oxford University Press ** United States ** 78-0-19-520528-2 ** 118 https://books.google.com/books?id=1_fwo9-URNEC&pg=PA118 citing C.V. Wedgwood
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: What wouldst thou be found doing when overtaken by Death? If I might choose, I would be found doing some deed of true humanity, of wide import, beneficent and noble. But if I may not be found engaged in aught so lofty, let me hope at least for this—what none may hinder, what is surely in my power—that I may be found raising up in myself that which had fallen; learning to deal more wisely with the things of sense; working out my own tranquillity, and thus rendering that which is its due to every relation of life…. If death surprise me thus employed, it is enough if I can stretch forth my hands to God and say, “The faculties which I received at Thy hands for apprehending this thine Administration, I have not neglected. As far as in me lay, I have done Thee no dishonour. Behold how I have used the senses, the primary conceptions which Thou gavest me. Have I ever laid anything to Thy charge? Have I ever murmured at aught that came to pass, or wished it otherwise? Have I in anything transgressed the relations of life? For that Thou didst beget me, I thank Thee for that Thou hast given: for the time during which I have used the things that were Thine, it suffices me. Take them back and place them wherever Thou wilt! They were all Thine, and Thou gavest them me.”—If a man depart thus minded, is it not enough? What life is fairer or more noble, what end happier than his? (189).
John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal
The Pillar of the Cloud http://www.bartleby.com/236/75.html, st. 1 (1833).
Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Variant: One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 542.
“I need the Lord's guidance on what to do… I asked God for wisdom.”
Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon
Source: Think Big (1996), p. 16