Sherman

“To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

“Is life a boon?
If so, it must befall
That Death, whene'er he call,
Must call too soon.
Though fourscore years he give,
Yet one would pray to live
Another moon!
What kind of plaint have I,
Who perish in July?
I might have had to die,
Perchance, in June!

Is life a thorn?
Then count it not a whit!
Man is well done with it;
Soon as he's born
He should all means essay
To put the plague away;
And I, war-worn,
Poor captured fugitive,
My life most gladly give -
I might have had to live,
Another morn!”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Yeomen of the Guard: Or The Merryman and his Maid

“Suddenly she realized that what she was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Those who seek death shall live. Those who seek life shall die.”
― Sun-sin Yi