Life

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

by Wilfred Owen

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot…

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye,
Much sense the starkest madness.
‘Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevail:
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, you’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

by Emily Dickinson

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
- Marianne Williamson

“To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.”
- Abraham Maslow

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
- Howard Thurman

“A lot of people miss opportunity because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work”
- Thomas Edison

“A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man perfected without trials.”
Chinese Proverb