Life

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

-- Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

Life is not an easy matter.... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.

-- Leon Trotsky, Diary In Exile, Entry for April 3, 1935

Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.

-- Karl Wallenda

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

-- Oscar Wilde