What Really Shapes And Conditions And Makes Us Is Somebody Only A Few Of Us Ever Have The Courage To Face

HomeFortune CookiesMiscellaneous Collections

What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few
of us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once
were, long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that
impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get
enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit
till at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he
look peaceful?" It is those pent-up, craving children who make all
the wars and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and
discovery in life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond
their grasp before they were five years old.
-- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels"

Related: