"Into the woods--you have to grope,

But that's the way you learn to cope.

Into the woods to find there's hope

Of getting through the journey.

Into the woods, each time you go,

There's more to learn of what you know..."

(Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods)

“I have striven

not to laugh
at human actions,
not to weep at them,
nor to hate them,
but to 

understand them.” 

- Baruch Spinoza

(art by Dariusz Zawadzki)

 

“You don't love someone

for their looks,

or their clothes,

or for their fancy car,

but because they sing a song

only you can hear.”

― Oscar Wilde

(Alexander Khokhlov & make-up artist Valeriya Kutsan)

The greatest enemy lies within,

and its name is fear.

Conquer fear

and nothing can stand

in your way.

"The feeling of pity in others

is very difficult for a man to bear,

and it is hardest of all

when the pity is deserved.

Hatred is a tonic

it quickens life

and stimulates revenge;

but pity is death to us

it makes our weakness weaker still.

It is as if distress

simpered ingratiatingly at us;

contempt lurks in the tenderness,

or tenderness in an affront."

(Honoré de Balzac - The Wild Ass's Skin)

O Muses, O high genius, now assist me!

O memory, that didst write down what I saw,

Here thy nobility shall be manifest!

(Dante - Inferno: Canto II)

(art by Matteo Arfanotti)

"History is indeed

little more than

the register

of the crimes,

follies,

and misfortunes

of mankind."

(Edward Gibbon)

(art by  Johann Valentin Andree)