“Nothing was more excruciating to the hunger artist than such watchers. They depressed him.”  A Hunger Artist

"It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve, and bad things are very easy to get." The Analects of Confucius

Let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who has cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to him, and rather hurtful in their effects, and has followed after the pleasures of knowledge in this life; who has adorned the soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth—in these arrayed she is ready to go on her journey to the world below, when her time comes. You, Simmias and Cebes, and all other men, will depart at some time or other. Me already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls. The Trials Of Socrates

At the door of every happy person there should be a man with a hammer whose knock would serve as a constant reminder of the existence of unfortunate people. Seagull