"If there be light ...."

If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.

Pythagoras

"I live in that solitude ...."

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

Albert Einstein

"Welcome each day ...."

"Welcome each day like a good meal."

"… a full life needs to be about self-cultivation."

Joan Erikson

"On no subject ...."

On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. ... Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights.

John Muir