The Pessimists"O you proud Christians, wretched souls and small,/ Who by the dim lights of your twisted minds/ Believe you prosper even as you fall,/ Can you not see that we are worms, each one/ Born to become the angelic butterfly/ That flies defenseless to the Judgement Throne?" (Dante, Canto 10, "Purgatorio") "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools, The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing" (William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 5) "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." (Soren Kierkegaard) "Life itself is a quotation." (Jorge Luis Borges) "Everything has been figured out, except how to live." (Jean-Paul Sartre) |
The Optimists"Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact." (William James) "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." (Friedrich Nietzsche) "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." (Maya Angelou) "Life is about creating yourself." (George Bernard Shaw) "I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer." (Woody Allen) |