Chad Gibbons

“We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.”
― W H Auden, The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue

“So that is what my dream meant! Pashenka is what I ought to
have been but failed to be. I lived for men on the pretext of
living for God, while she lived for God imagining that she lives
for men. Yes, one good deed--a cup of water given without
thought of reward--is worth more than any benefit I imagined I
was bestowing on people. But after all was there not some share
of sincere desire to serve God?' he asked himself, and the answer
was: 'Yes, there was, but it was all soiled and overgrown by
desire for human praise. Yes, there is no God for the man who
lives, as I did, for human praise. I will now seek Him!”
― Leo Tolstoy, Father Sergius

“My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world into some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

“I was in the robe-chamber, adjoining the House of Lords, when the King put on his robes. His brow was much furrowed with age and quite clouded with care. And is this all the world can give even to a king? All the grandeur it can afford? A blanket of ermine round his shoulders, so heavy and cumbersome he can scarcely move under it! A huge heap of borrowed hair, with a few plates of gold and glittering stones upon his head! Alas, what a bauble is human greatness! And even this will not endure.”
― John Wesley