Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it, forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it. ― Henry James

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Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. ― Emily Dickinson

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If you want something you can have it, but only if you want everything that goes with it, including all the hard work and the despair, and only if you're willing to risk failure. ― Philip Pullman

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I was nineteen. You had your lips on my neck and whispers in my ear. You drove me crazy. But I mistook crazy for absolute happiness. ― Dominic Riccitello

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Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep. ― Carl Sandburg

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What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this -- two things: I crave truth. And I lie. ― Tana French

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Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. ― Parker J. Palmer

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You see, doing one thing differently is very often the same as doing everything differently. ― Matt Haig

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Normally, in anything I do, I'm fairly miserable. I do it, and I get grumpy because there is a huge, vast gulf, this aching disparity, between the platonic ideal of the project that was living in my head, and the small, sad, wizened, shaking, squeaking thing that I actually produce. ― Neil Gaiman

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The way I define happiness is being the creator of your experience, choosing to take pleasure in what you have, right now, regardless of the circumstances, while being the best you that you can be. ― Leo Babauta

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