WIST

For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-British poet, critic, playwright [Thomas Stearns Eliot]
“East Coker” (5), Four Quartets (1943)

I know of nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) American poet
“Democratic Vistas” (1871)

Conversashun should be enlivened with wit, not compozed ov it.

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia, “Sollum Thoughts” (1874)

We think that powerful and lifeful movement is impossible without differences — “true conformity” is possible only in the cemetery.

Josef Stalin (1879-1953) Soviet political leader
“Our purposes,” Pravda (first issue) (22 January 1912)

But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us, to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) English poet and critic
“The Buried Life,” st. 6 (1852)
Full text.