All too often it's easier to be someone else than just being yourself.

— Anthony T. Hincks

A man's life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuff of the candle; and this, I say, is considerable, and not a little matter, whether we regard its pleasures or its pains. To draw a peevish conclusion to the contrary from our own superannuated desires or forgetful indifference is about as reasonable as to say, a man never was young because he has grown old, or never lived because he is now dead. The length or agreeableness of a journey does not depend on the few last steps of it, nor is the size of a building to be judged of from the last stone that is added to it. It is neither the first nor last hour of our existence, but the space that parts these two - not our exit nor our entrance upon the stage, but what we do, feel, and think while there - that we are to attend to in pronouncing sentence upon it.

— William Hazlitt

Am I just a mosaic of myself, held in the shape of a whole person?

— Emma Newman

And he was. Suddenly. From not being to being conscious that he was.

— Gioconda Belli

And so man, as existing transcendence abounding in and surpassing toward possibilities, is a creature of distance. Only through the primordial distances he establishes toward all being in his transcendence does a true nearness to things flourish in him.

— Martin Heidegger

And sometimes if I want To imagine I’m a lamb (Or a whole flock Spreading out all over the hillsides I can be a lot of happy things at the same time), It’s only because I feel what I write at sunset, Or when a cloud passes its hand over the light And silence runs over the grass outside. When I sit and write poems Or, walking along the roads or pathways, I write poems on the paper in my thoughts, I feel a staff in my hand And see my silhouette On top of a knoll, Looking after my flock and seeing my ideas, Or looking after my ideas and seeing my flock, With a silly smile like someone who doesn’t understand what somebody’s saying But tries to pretend they do.

— Alberto Caeiro

And the idea of nothingness — the most terrifying of all ideas, when thought of with feeling — has, in my dear master’s work and in my memories of him, something as high and luminous as sunlight upon snowy, unscalable peaks.

— Álvaro de Campos

And yet, and yet… Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are apparent desperation and secret consolations. Our destiny … is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.

— Jorge Luis Borges

And you require no answers", Foam follower was laughing in his gladness, "You are sufficient to every question".

— Stephen R. Donaldson

Animals died when their time came, and meanwhile they didn't bother with clothes, or go to war, or get drunk, or judge other animals by there look. They didn't get afraid unless there was something to be afraid of. She herself came apart with terror over something she couldn't define or understand. She didn't get afraid of something. Furthermore, she just got terrified> Filled with anxiety. For no reason. For no reason she could name. Would name. Animals didn't look back with shivering shame at things in their past. They didn't quake at the thought of what lay ahead. They didn't try to make it into clique and feel sick with humiliation because they couldn't make it.

— Mary Stolz