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My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to
make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose -
somehow we win out.
Ronald Reagan

CXXV



Were\'t aught to me I bore the canopy,

With my extern the outward honouring,

Or laid great bases for eternity,

Which proves more short than waste or ruining?

Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour

Lose all and more by paying too much rent

For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,

Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?

No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,

And take thou my oblation, poor but free,

Which is not mix\'d with seconds, knows no art,

But mutual render, only me for thee.

  Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul

  When most impeach\'d, stands least in thy control.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXIV



If my dear love were but the child of state,

It might for Fortune\'s bastard be unfather\'d,

As subject to Time\'s love or to Time\'s hate,

Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather\'d.

No, it was builded far from accident;

It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls

Under the blow of thralled discontent,

Whereto th\' inviting time our fashion calls:

It fears not policy, that heretic,

Which works on leases of short-number\'d hours,

But all alone stands hugely politic, 

That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.

  To this I witness call the fools of time,

  Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

 	--William Shakespeare