/lit/ - Literature

the purpose of life is not happiness, but rather heroic accomplishment. Every soul encompasses potential heroism, I thought. But every soul flickers for a few adolescent years with heroic visions, before resigning itself to mediocre values, before submitting to the lives of others, shrivelling & finally perishing. Why should I not be a soul, which no matter what the sacrifice required, attained heroism? Who could know? Perhaps I would be victorious in my pursuit of heroism. But then the victory itself would no longer have any meaning, but only the tireless striving toward it.

works & days, p60