One never lives so intensely as when one has been thinking hard

“Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. It is a journey of the spirit through the material world and, since it is the spirit that travels, it is the spirit that is experienced. That is why there exist contemplative souls who have lived more intensely, more widely, more tumultuously than others who have lived their lives purely externally. The end result is what matters. What one felt was what one experienced. One retires to bed as wearily from having dreamed as from having done hard physical labor. One never lives so intensely as when one has been thinking hard.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

Emerging unscathed in the worst of times

 
A message to the young in these uncertain and at times "desperate" times...
 

"We live in very interesting times ..... People are getting a little desperate. They might not show their best elements to you. You must never lower yourself to being a person you don’t like. In the worst of times the best among us never lose their moral compass and that is how they emerge relatively unscathed." - Henry Rollins