"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something."
— Henry David Thoreau

"Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."
— Oscar Wilde

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default."
— J.K. Rowling

"The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good."
— W.H. Auden (Selected Poems)

"All day the blanket snapped and swelled
on the line, roused by a hot spring wind....
From there it witnessed the first sparrow,
early flies lifting their sticky feet,
and a green haze on the south-sloping hills.
Clouds rose over the mountain....At dusk
I took the blanket in, and we slept,
restless, under its fragrant weight. "
— Jane Kenyon