“What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?”
“What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?”
“Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
For what they have not, that which they possess
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.”
“But no perfection is so absolute
That some inpurity doth not pollute.”
“Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without orator.”
“This forced league doth force a further strife.”
“Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the public plague of many moe?
Let sin, alone committed, light alone
Upon his head that hath transgressed so;
Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe:
For one's offence why should so many fall,
To plague a private sin in general?”
“The deep vexation of is inward soul
Hath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue;
Who, mad that sorrow should his use control,
Or keep him from heart-easing words so long,
Begins to talk; but through his lips do throng
Weak words, so thick come in his poor heart's aid,
That no man could distinguish what he said.”
“longest journey commences with a single step, and the first step is always the hardest.”
“The barriers are self-imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don’t need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers.”
“You’re like Lady Macbeth without the murder.” “Thank you. You have no idea how much of a compliment that is to me.”
“Maybe there is a chance for happiness after all, despite my online slutdom and psychopathic urges.”
“EROS AND THANATOS Beyond all this, the wish to be alone However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards However we follow the printed directions of sex However the family is photographed under the flagstaff— Beyond all this, the wish to be alone Beneath it all desire of oblivion runs Despite the artful tensions of the calendar, The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites, The costly aversion of the eyes from death — Beneath it all desire of oblivion runs. • PHILIP LARKIN”
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