Anxiety, Fear and Courage

I saw a delicate flower had grown up two feet high, between the horses' path and the wheeltrack. An inch more to right or left had sealed its fate, or an inch higher; and yet it lived to flourish as much as if it had a thousand acres of untrodden space around it, and never knew the danger it incurred. It did not borrow trouble, nor invite an evil fate by apprehending it.

-- Henry David Thoreau

This, Too, Shall Pass Away

Are thou in misery, brother? Then I pray
Be comforted. Thy grief shall pass away.
Art thou elated? Ah, be not too gay;
Temper thy joy: this, too, shall pass away.
Art thou in danger? Still let reason sway.
And cling to hope: this, too, shall pass away.
Tempted art thou? In all thine anguish lay
One truth to heart: this, to, shall pass away.
Do rays of loftier glory round thee play?
Kinglike art thou? This, too, shall pass away!
Whate'er thou art, where'er thy footsetps stray,
Heed these wise words: This, too, shall pass away.

-- Paul Hamilton Hayne

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

-- Marie Curie

The little cares that fretted me,
I lost them yesterday
Among the fields above the sea,
Among the winds at play;

Among the lowing of the herds,
The rustling of the trees,
Among the singing of the birds,
The humming of the bees.

The foolish fears of what may pass,
I cast them all away
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the new-mown hay;

Among the husking of the corn
Where drowsy poppies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born,
Out in the fields with God.

-- Unknown

Do not anxiously expect what has not yet come. Do not vainly regret what is already past.

-- Unknown

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scross.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

-- William Ernest Henley

It is now what you have lost, but what you have left that counts.

-- Harold Russell

It Couldn't Be Done

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.

-- Edgar A. Guest