Quote of the Day

Walter (Horatio) Pater was a nineteenth century English man of letters. Here's something he wrote in 1873:

"Not the fruit of experience, but experience
itself, is the end. A counted number of
pulses only is given to us of a variegated,
dramatic life. How shall we pass most swiftly
from point to point, and be present always
at the focus where the greatest number of
vital forces unite in their purest energy?
To burn always with this hard, gemlike
flame, to maintain this ecstasy,
is success in life."