In the middle of our life journey I found myself in a dark wood. I had wandered from the straight path. It isn't easy to talk about it: it was such a thick, wild, and rough forest that when I think of it my fear returns….I can't offer any good explanation for how I entered it. I was so sleepy at that point that I strayed from the right path. --Dante, Inferno, Canto I
You ask my thoughts
through the long night?
I spent it listening
to the heavy rain
beating against the windows.
--Izumi Shikibu
You can't conceive, nor can I,
the appalling strangeness
of the mercy of God.
Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
A man must wrestle til the dark centre,
that is shut up close, break open,
and the spark lying therein kindle.
--Jacob Boehme, On True Resignation
If all men knew what others say of them,
there would not be four friends in the world
--Blaise Pascal
Distrust everyone in whom
the impulse to punish is powerful!
--Nietzsche
What saves a man is to take a step.
Then another step.
--CS Lewis
