Alexander

“Life is too short to be lived badly.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

“In the make-up of human beings, intelligence counts for more than our hands, and that is our true strength.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“There are souls beneath that water. Fixed in slime
they speak their piece, end it, and start again:

'Sullen were we in the air made sweet by the Sun;
in the glory of his shining our hearts poured
a bitter smoke. Sullen were we begun;
sullen we lie forever in this ditch.'
This litany they gargle in their throats
as if they sand, but lacked the words and pitch.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“And now the measure of my song is done:
The work has reached its end; the book is mine,
None shall unwrite these words: nor angry Jove,
Nor war, nor fire, nor flood,
Nor venomous time that eats our lives away.
Then let that morning come, as come it will,
When this disguise I carry shall be no more,
And all the treacherous years of life undone,
And yet my name shall rise to heavenly music,
The deathless music of the circling stars.
As long as Rome is the Eternal City
These lines shall echo from the lips of men,
As long as poetry speaks truth on earth,
That immortality is mine to wear.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses