Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
--Bertrand Russell

If china, then only the kind
you wouldn't miss under ther movers' shoes or the treads of a tank;
if a chair, then one that's not too comfortable, or
you'll regret getting up and leaving;
if clothes, then only what will fit in one suitcase;
if books, then those you know by heart;
if plans, then the ones you can give up
when it comes time for the next move,
to another street, another continent or epoch
or world:

who told you you could settle in?
who told you this or that would last forever?
didn't anyone tell you you'll never
in the world
feel at home here?

--Stanislaw Baranczak

Thomas Merton on Despair

Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost...Despair is the ultimate development of a pride so great and so stiff-necked that it selects the absolute misery of a damnation rather than accept happiness from the hands of God and thereby acknowledge that He is above us and that we are not capable of fulfilling our destiny ourselves. But a person who is truly humble cannot despair, because in a humble person there is no longer any such thing as self-pity.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

From Lizzy

"The fortunate man is he to whom the gods have granted the power either to do something worth recording, or write something worth reading. Most fortunate of all is the man who can do both." -Pliny

God does not ask us about our ability, only our availability. If we prove our dependability, He will increase our capability. -Unknown

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people will do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can do something great. -Mark Twain

The Devil's cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do God's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. -C.S. Lewis