Ed Brooks

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life,
but exhaust the limits of the possible.”
― Pindar

“A complete life may be one ending in so full identification with the non-self that there is no self to die.”
― Bernard Berenson

“When evening comes, I return to my home, and I go into my study; and on the thresh-hold, I take off my everyday clothes, which are covered in mud and mire,and I put on regal and curial robes; and dressed in a more appropriate manner I enter into the ancient courts of ancient men and am welcomed by them kindly, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born; and there I am not ashamed to speak to them, to ask them the reasons for their actions; and they, in their humanity, answer me; and for four hours I feel no boredom,I dismiss every affliction, I no longer fear poverty nor do I tremble at the thought of death; I become completely part of them.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Letters of Machiavelli : A Selection