Waking Quotes - page 5
If it is suggested that I preached the idea of freedom for my country and this is against the law, I plead guilty to the charge. If that is the law here I say I have done that and I request you to convict me, but do not impute to me crimes I am not guilty of, deeds against which my whole nature revolts and which, having regard to my mental capacity, is something which could never have been perpetrated by me. If it is an offence to preach the ideal of freedom, I admit having done it. I have never disputed it. It is for this I have given up all the prospects of my life. It is for this that I came to Calcutta, to live for it and labour for it. It has been the one thought of my waking hours, the dream of my sleep. If that is my offence, there is no necessity of bringing witness to bring into the box to dispose different things in connection with that. Here am I and I admit it... If that is my fault you can chain me, imprison me, but you will never get out of me a denial of that charge.
Sri Aurobindo
How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams - waking dreams, I mean - the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey's nose, seems always just within our reach, if only we will gallop fast enough, that makes us run so eagerly along the road of Life.
Jerome K. Jerome