Reluctance by Robert Frost

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?



--Robert Frost, Reluctance

"It is terrible to desire and not possess"

"When you long with all your heart for someone to love you, a madness grows there that shakes all sense from the trees and the water and the earth. And nothing lives for you, except the long deep bitter want. And this is what everyone feels from birth to death."



----Denton Welch

work

I don’t like work. I’d rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don’t like work – no one does – but I like what is in the work – the chance to find yourself. Your own reality – for yourself, not for others – what no one else can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.
[Joseph Conrad, ‘Heart of Darkness’]