Self-Reliance

"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist..."

"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, - that is genious."

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the worls to live after world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude"

" It is so bad to be misundertood? pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

sunsets.

There is a story, from ‘Sandman’ where an old man talks to Lucifer, in a beach, thinking he is just another hippie.

Old man - I come here almost every dusk to watch the sunset. It’s beautiful today, isn’t it? You, young people, have no idea. I used to come here with my wife and children. Darren was killed in Vietnam. Sean crashed the car. I was with him, but only I survived. And, when I left the hospital, my wife and I continued coming here. She had cancer. Well, now... It’s just me. And I still come here to watch the sunset. You know, almost every night it’s wonderful. And every single night it’s different. Then I think... Well, I had a shit life, considering everything. It wasn’t fair. Everyone I loved died. And my leg hurts all the time. But then I realize... Any god that can make a sunset like this, different every night… Shit! You gotta respect the son of a bitch!

Alright, then. If you come here tomorrow, I see you.

Lucifer - Yeah, I guess i'll be around…

Old man - You’re a hippie, aren’t you? Ok. I met some good hippies in my life. See you, my friend.

Lucifer - Ok, I admit. He’s right. The sunsets are fucking beautiful, you old bastard.

O Retrato de Dorian Gray

"(...) se o homem vivesse uma vida plena, completa, se desse forma a toda sensação, expressão a todo pensamento, realidade a todo sonho, creio que o mundo conquistaria um impulso, tão novo, de alegria, que nos esqueceríamos de todos os males do medievalismo e retomaríamos ao ideal helênico, a algo mais requintado, mais substancial mesmo, quem sabe."

"Somos castigados por nossas recusas. Todo impulso que nos esforçamos por estrangular remói em nossa mente, e nos envenena. O corpo peca uma vez, e se livra do pecado, pois a ação é um modo de purificação. E, então, nada permanece: apenas a lembrança do prazer, ou a luxúria de um remorso. A única maneira de nos livrarmos de uma tentação é capitularmos a ela."

"- Ah, Lorde Henry, como eu gostaria que o senhor me ensinasse a ser jovem novamente.
- A senhora, duquesa, seria capaz de se lembrar de algum grande erro que tivesse cometido em tenra idade?
- De muitos, receio.
- Então cometa-os de novo. Para se recuperar a juventude, basta repetir as mesmas loucuras."

"Hoje em dia, a maioria das pessoas morre de uma espécie de consenso servil, e, quando já é tarde demais, descobre que as únicas coisas de que não nos arrependemos são nossos erros."


Oscar Wilde