I think, therefore I am wrong, after which I speak, and my wrongness falls on someone also thinking wrongly, and then there are two of us thinking wrongly, and, being human, we can’t bear to think without taking action, which, having been taken, makes things worse.

No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” —Edmund Burke, 1756.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” —Marcus Aurelius

When I look back, I know with certainty there are many things I should not have done. But they are part of me, part of who I have become, and they have a place in the context of my life. They are reminders that mistakes can be built on, that journeys are filled with learning and that the right path, whatever ‘right’ may mean for you, is often only a step away.

And immediately I regretted it.

I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!

I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education. - D.H. Lawrence