“Rather a thousand times the county jail than to lie under this marble figure with wings and this granite pedestal bearing the words "pro patria." What do they mean anyway?”

“I have studied many timesThe marble which was chiseled for me—A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.In truth it pictures not my destinationBut my life.For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.And now I know that we must lift the sailAnd catch the winds of destinyWherever they drive the boat.To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,But life without meaning is the tortureOf restlessness and vague desire—It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.”

“To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,But life without meaning is the tortureOf restlessness and vague desire--It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.”

“And I never started to plow in my lifeThat some one did not stop in the roadAnd take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle—And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,And not a single regret.”

“I tramped through the countryTo get the feelingThat I was not a separate thing from the earth.I used to lose myselfBy lying with eyes half-open in the woods.Sometimes I talked with animals…”

“In time you shall see Fate approach youIn the shape of your own image in the mirror.”

“The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished;And what is love but a rose that fades?”