Johnathan Phillips

“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness…. And this was most vexing of all,” he noted, “HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong... to measure yourself at least once.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables