Success is measured by the opposition you encounter, and the courage with which you maintain the struggle against overwhelming odds.
–Marden
Eschew sidewalks and low hanging tree branches; walk in the middle of the street, and listen for the notes of traffic.
Love? I will tell thee what it is to love! It is to build with human thoughts a shrine, where hope sits brooding like a beauteous dove; where time seems young, and life a thing divine. All tastes, all pleasures, all desires combine to consecrate this sanctuary of bliss. Above, the stars in cloudless beauty shine; around, the streams their flowery margins kiss; and if there’s heaven on earth, that heaven is surely this.
Charles Swain (1801 – 1874)
The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving sleet and mist.
Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm.
Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors’ wives and widows.
A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks of the storm.
Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable.
The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit.
Chapter 3 – The Chapel, Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Music is the only religion that really delivers the goods.
Frank Zappa
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times over many years and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers.
The introduction begins like this:
“Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space. Listen…”
and so on.
Update 2025: Blooming just like this, right now.
NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration and Artemis. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and cargo directly to the Moon in a single launch.
Update 2024: Artemis