Jake Gray

“I have carried only a few ideas out of life's storm - and not one feeling. I have long lived according to the head, not the heart. I consider and analyze my personal passions and actions with a strict curiosity, but without sympathy. There are two people within me: one who lives in the full sense of the word, and the other who reasons and judges him.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Life is a storm. One minute you will bathe under the sun and the next you will be shattered upon the rocks. That's when you shout, "Do your worst, for I will do mine!" and you will be remembered forever.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“I was born for the peaceful life,
for rural quiet:
the lyre's voice in the wild is more resounding,
creative dreams are more alive.
To harmless leisures consecrated,
I wander by a wasteful lake
and far niente is my rule.
By every morn I am awakened
unto sweet mollitude and freedom;
little I read, a lot I sleep,
fugitive fame do not pursue.
Was it not thus in former years,
that I spent in inaction, in the shade,
my happiest days?”
― Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin