“Without will, no conflict: no tragedy among the abulic. Yet the failure of will can be experienced more painfully than a tragic destiny.”

Feeling and Form, ch. 19, Scribner (1953)

2000s, 2003, Mission Accomplished (May 2003)

(213).
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Rivlin-deputies-reject-Tibi-bill-to-commemorate-Nakba, 4 July 2011

Source: Poke the Box

Quoted in Good Housekeeping (November 1989), p. 92.
Context: Hope, faith, love and a strong will to live offer no promise of immortality, only proof of our uniqueness ans human beings and the opportunity to experience full growth even under the grimmest circumstances. Far more real than the ticking of time is the way we open up the minutes and invest them with meaning. Death is not the ultimate tragedy in life. The ultimate tragedy is to die without discovering the possibilities of full growth.

Letter to James Hessey (October 9, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)
Context: I have written independently without Judgment. I may write independently, and with Judgment, hereafter. The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself — That which is creative must create itself — In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a, silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.

Source: Emotional amoral egoism (2008), p.181