
“Teach us…… that we may feel the importance of every day, of every hour, as it passes.”
Invitation to the Journey
Journey Within (1947)
Context: Never do I hesitate to look squarely at the unexpected face that every passing hour unveils to us, and to sacrifice the false images of it formed in advance, however dear they may be. In me, the love of life in general predominates over love of my own life (that, indeed, would never have sufficed to bear me up). May life herself speak! However inadequate I may be in listening to her, and in repeating her words, I shall try to record them, even if they contradict my most secret desires. In all that I write, may her will, not mine, be done!
“Teach us…… that we may feel the importance of every day, of every hour, as it passes.”
Book II, ch. 4 (trans. Constance Garnett)
The Elder Zossima, speaking to Mrs. Khoklakov
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 4: Beauty
Variant: I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Source: Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
“When a doktor looks me square in the face and kant see no money in me, then i am happy.”
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
“Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.”
Source: God of Grace and God of Glory (1930)
Context: God of grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.
Quote in 'From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting', Kazimir Malevich, November 1916
1910 - 1920