It is foolish to take sides in disputes, or seek some other place or mode of living, or to envy the future or the past; all desire is delusion. Even life is an uncertain good; death not a certain evil; one should have no prejudices against either of them. Best of all is a calm acceptance; not to reform the world, but to bear with it patiently; not to fever ourselves with progress, but to content ourselves with peace. —from Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization

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The featured image is “Moonrise over the Sea” (1822) by Caspar David Friedrich and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It has been brightened for clarity.

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