Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. War and Peace

"Study the past if you would define the future." The Analects of Confucius

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill? East Of Eden

Frequent and violent temptations were a proof that the citadel of the soul had not fallen and that the devil raged to make it fall. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man