Jack London's Credo

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

 Discovery By Wislawa Szymborska

I believe in the great discovery. I believe in the man who will make the discovery. I believe in the fear of the man who will make the discovery. I believe in his face going white, His queasiness, his upper lip drenched in cold sweat. I believe in the burning of his notes, burning them into ashes, burning them to the last scrap. I believe in the scattering of numbers, scattering them without regret. I believe in the man's haste, in the precision of his movements, in his free will. ...

 On the Nature of Things...

No single thing abides; but all things flow. Fragment to fragment clings-the things thus grow Until we know and name them. By degrees They melt, and are no more the things we know. Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift I see the suns, I see the systems lift Their forms; and even the systems and the suns Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift. You too, oh earth-your empires, lands, and seas - Least with your stars, of all the galaxies, Globed from the drift like these, like these you ...