
“Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.”
Source: The Poems of John Donne; Miscellaneous Poems (Songs and Sonnets) Elegies. Epithalamions, or Marriage Songs. Satires. Epigrams. the Progress of
Source: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 157
“Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.”
Source: The Poems of John Donne; Miscellaneous Poems (Songs and Sonnets) Elegies. Epithalamions, or Marriage Songs. Satires. Epigrams. the Progress of
“While it is wise to learn from experience, it is wiser to learn from the experiences of others.”
Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
“Toil conquered the world, unrelenting toil, and want that pinches when life is hard.”
Labor omnia vicit<!--uicit-->
improbus et duris urgens in rebus egestas.
Book I, lines 145–146 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough).
Compare: Labor omnia vincit ("Work conquers all"), the state motto of Oklahoma.
Georgics (29 BC)
"The Sunshine of thine Eyes" in Dreams and Days (1892).
Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 7: Time
Context: Sometimes you're invited to a big ball and for months you think about how glamorous and exciting it's going to be. Then you fly to Europe and you go to the ball and when you think back on it a couple of months later what you remember is maybe the car ride to the ball, you can't remember the ball at all. Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life. I should have been dreaming for months about the car ride to the ball and getting dressed for the car ride, and buying my ticket to Europe so I could take the car ride. Then, who knows, maybe I could have remembered the ball.
“I do not want to pass the time. I want to grab hold of it and leave my mark upon the world.”
Source: The Sweet Far Thing
“Learn fortitude and toil from me, my son,
Ache of true toil. Good fortune learn from others.”
Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem,
Fortunam ex aliis.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book XII, Lines 435–436 (tr. Robert Fitzgerald)
Michael Robartes and the Dancer http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1535/
Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921)
Context: Opinion is not worth a rush;
In this altar-piece the knight,
Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,
Loved the lady; and it’s plain
The half-dead dragon was her thought,
That every morning rose again
And dug its claws and shrieked and fought.
Could the impossible come to pass
She would have time to turn her eyes,
Her lover thought, upon the glass
And on the instant would grow wise.
Source: Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede (1991), pp. 213-214